


Five Times Mike and Micky Shared a Bed...And One Time Mike and Peter Shared Theirs With Micky

by Lauren_StDavid



Series: Early Beechwood [2]
Category: The Monkees, The Monkees (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Early Days, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mild Kink, Mild Painplay, Mild S&M, Mildly Dubious Consent, No Strings Attached, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Recreational Drug Use, Slight Micky/Peter, Slight Mike/Peter, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2020-12-14 08:44:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21012971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauren_StDavid/pseuds/Lauren_StDavid
Summary: Elements of their rl personalities have seeped in.Ages and so on are a bit fudged.





	1. Early Summer, 1964

**Author's Note:**

> Elements of their rl personalities have seeped in.
> 
> Ages and so on are a bit fudged.

Mike took a deep breath of the LA night. The Santa Monica Boulevard was one of those streets that seemed not just very different, but only half-alive, without its sun and its crowds, he’d discovered. Yeah, different in energy, in a way that Texas streets hadn’t seemed to be. They’d been more constant. If it was a good thing or a bad thing, he didn’t know. He guessed he’d find out, the longer he stayed here.

“What a _blast_.” The guy who’d come out into the night—or, early morning; little bit longer and this street would be coming back to life again—after him clutched at the Troubadour’s wooden door closing behind him and missed, so settled for leaning against the recess of the wall instead.

“You okay?”

“Oh, sure.” The guy almost dropped his stage clothes and shoes, so Mike grabbed them. “Hey, thanks.” He had a clear, almost pure, somehow, voice, despite being a little smashed. He opened an eye and pushed at the hair that wasn’t as straight as it had been when he’d arrived and was now threatening his eye. “Gotta decompress a little, after being in there. ’S’like diving, you know? Like scuba? Change in pressure?”

“Wouldn’t know. Never been.”

“Oh.” The guy had both eyes open now and stood straighter. “Groovy night, huh? You made a great host. Emcee, I mean. You gotta real _dry_ delivery. Can’t believe it was your first time!”

“Thanks. Yeah, you said.” Mike wanted to look round for the other two guys he’d met on this very strange night, but he knew they’d gone. There were very few stragglers left, and no one else to help this guy out. “So, I’ll see you to your car?”

With a, “Thanks!” the guy set off—across the boulevard. The two-lane-traffic boulevard.

“Wait! Nick—”

“_Mick._ Micky,” came over the guy’s shoulder. “With no—”

“_E._ I remember. Jesus, kid, watch the fuck out!” Mike had plowed through the thankfully thin stream of cars and caught up with the guy…at the train tracks running down the middle of the boulevard. He grabbed him by the shirt. “Be careful here too—freight trains run on these at night!”

“Not at the moment.”

“There’s one due soon.” Mike was an obstinate son…of the south. He released Micky when it was safe to cross and kept pace with him. “You in that parking lot?” He nodded when Micky did, only Mike stopped a lot sooner, not making it into a movement that could’ve accompanied music—if any were playing. The guy hadn’t been that blitzed inside the club—the air must have hit him hard. Mike looked at the few cars left in the lot and frowned. “Which one’s yours?”

“This one.”

“Oh?”

‘“Think small.”’ Micky grinned and patted the VW Bug. “What?”

“Just I can kinda match people with their cars and…” Okay, it was a rag top, but rear-engine economy car? _This kid?_ The light was dim but enough for Mike to bend and examine the Volkswagen Beetle Micky was now leaning against. Larger taillights, so 1962. Oh yeah, Micky had just quoted the ’62 model’s slogan. This car was two years old— “What was your previous vehicle?”

“’59 Impala.”

Mike grinned. “Yeah, I figured. What kind of upholstery?”

“You tell me, oh wise one.” Micky tried to fold his arms and mostly succeeded.

“Tuck and roll, not pleats.”

“Yeah!” Micky looked surprised at his own volume. “But this car’s neat. Say, I’d love a Volkswagen Type 2, one day. You know, the Kombi? The van? Be _so_ rad. Which is yours?”

“I-I got a ride over here. I got a bike, but…” Mike made his shrug do for _got no gas_. He didn’t want to admit it.

“A bike? Hey, be careful driving in the left lane here, then, with the train tracks! Last time I tried it, I nearly got stuck and got such a wheel wobble my sister got bounced off the back of the bike!”

“Really?” Mike had no idea if the guy was kidding, or exaggerating, but his mime of the event had Mike grinning.

“I can give you a ride.” Micky went to pat his Bug again, and missed this time. “Whadda y’say?”

“I say _I_ should be the one driving.”

“Oh, you’re one of those, huh?”

Before Mike could ask one of what, or even bristle at the implied slur, Micky had tugged his keys free and tossed them over. They missed too, and tinkled onto the ground. “Darn it, air ball.” Micky dropped to his knees to retrieve the keys. “Balance, eyes, elbow, follow-through. BEEF. How difficult is that to remember, for proper shooting form?”

“I can drop a dime,” Mike riffed, preparing to make an assist, or help, but Micky froze at footsteps at the parking lot entrance.

“Cops,” he hissed. “Damn.”

Mike risked a quick peep over his shoulder. Two of them. “You…on the run or something, kid?” he muttered. He knew next to nothing about the guy, after all.

“Curfew,” Micky replied, his face contracting even more into itself than Mike would’ve thought possible, seeing as it was squashed-in anyway. Wait, _curfew_? How old was he?

“Cops don’t usually bother the kids along here, not like the deputies along the Strip, but—”

“Go hide back there.” Mike jerked his chin and cut Micky off. He turned slowly, when Micky had crawled out of sight, then picked up the keys, straightening as the two patrol officers approached.

“Hey,” said one.

“Hey,” Mike replied. He waited a beat, but when nothing more was said, added, “What seems to be the trouble, officer?”

“You got ID?” asked the other.

“I’ll need to reach into my back pocket to get my wallet.”

“Go ahead.” And back to the first, in classic tag-team style.

Mike moved a hand slowly, and one cop held his out fast, making a “gimme” gesture.

“Who were you talking to?” asked the second.

“Oh, I was singing. Just come from Hootnanny Night, at the club, yonder.” He wondered if the look this garnered him from both officers, then the look they exchanged, was due to his jeans and checked shirt—more appropriate for a folk club like Ledbetters than the freakier Troubadour, even on Hoot night.

“Yeah?” Cop One tipped his head back. “Folkie, huh? So give us a tune, why don’t you?”

“_What?_” They didn’t look they were kidding, but… “Really? I’ll need to reach into my pocket again.” He didn’t wait for the go-ahead but slipped his mouth organ from his breast pocket and blew a G, then took a deep breath and started, loud and obnoxious.

“You can’t judge an apple by looking at a tree, you can’t judge honey by looking at the bee, you can’t judge a daughter by looking at the mother, you can’t judge a book by looking at the cover.”

He blew a furious slide on the instrument, then paused, but got nothing in response. Okay… “Oh can’t you see, oh you misjudge me, I look like a farmer, but I’m a—”

“Okay, okay!” Cop One held up a hand. He scoffed, showing Mike’s ID to Two. “Huh. A southern boy singing race music.”

“A _po’_ southern boy,” corrected the second. He skimmed Mike’s ID back to him and, still chuckling, the pair walked away.

“It’s safe,” Mike called, after a minute, and Micky crawled out from behind the truck and stood. He stared at Mike.

“Man! You got some pipes!”

Of all the things a person could have said, in a situation like this, _that_ made Mike guffaw. He didn’t think he’d laughed as much since arriving in California as he had since running into this off-the-wall guy earlier. “_You_ have,” he corrected, referring back to the evening. “Ah mos’ly play gee-tar.”

He’d been planning on borrowing one, but the way things had turned out, he hadn’t been on the bill as an act. At least he’d gotten weekly employment from it, _and_ working with music. Micky was buckling at the knees. “C’mon.” Mike unlocked the passenger side and reached in to lay Micky’s clothes along the back seat, making a space to do so, then closed the door after Micky, once he’d helped him in.

“My mom’s from Texas,” Micky said, when Mike got in the driver’s side. “She’s got real nice manners too. She’s from Houston.”

“Me too.” He was so used to having to move a driver’s seat back, to accommodate his long legs, that he’d already rammed the lever down to free the mechanism before finding this seat positioned at a good distance from the pedals. Still, he moved it a fraction. He _was_ taller than Micky. Easy to see who drove this car most. Even if the seat position hadn’t clued him in, the amount of crap around the driver’s side would’ve. The car smelled nice though.

“And moved west, to LA.” Micky was still prattling.

“Me too. Well, via Dallas and then San Antonio.” Mike was trying to trace the aroma to a car air freshener or something, but couldn’t see one.

“Uh.” Micky looked all around the entrance to the parking lot, where they’d stopped. “What are we waiting for?”

Mike pointed. “That.” The freight car. Due now and on time, barrelling down the tracks in the center of the road. Once it was gone, he pulled out of the lot and crossed the boulevard, turning left as Micky directed.

Micky sniffed in appreciation. “Ummmm. Man, I love the Wonder Bread train. That smell makes me wanna chase after it, all the way from the factory and— Oooh, I’m hungry. Wanna stop for something to eat?”

Mike tilted his head at Micky’s feet. “You’d have to put shoes on.” Bare feet…that was another LA thing. Probably a California thing. Probably an anywhere on an ocean thing.

“I got brights and froggy-doos in the trunk. Well, the hood.”

“Wut?”

“The luggage goes in the front because—”

“I know. Rear engine. I meant what you got in the trunk-hood? Froggy _whats_?”

“Doos. Canvas shoes.” Micky’s little giggle floated like a bubble.

“Tennis shoes?” Mike thought he’d better check. “An’ brights are socks, right? White ones, like gym socks?” Figured the guy was…not athletic, exactly, but into sports.

“Uh-huh. So, Ben Franks?” Micky smacked his lips.

“I don’t wanna stop, no.” Mike’s stomach might gurgle at the mere thought of the chili cheese dog there, but he had no money for such things.

“Okay, so…_road trip_!” Micky yelled out of the window. “A little early in our friendship, but—”

“So, which way, _friend_?” Jesus. This guy never stopped. And Mike was grinning again.

“Take any road up to Sunset. Alta’s probably best. Wonder Bread… You know, I once tried out for a job with them?”

“In the factory?” Mike couldn’t see this snap case— “Oh, _once_. A while back? So, like delivery boy?” Yeah, the trike he _could_ see.

“No, the commercial. A few years back.”

“Oh.” Mike turned up Alta, processing. Micky had mentioned something about parts and auditions, earlier, but then who in this town wasn’t an actor, or model? Even that Pete guy— “That the one with the kids running around the neighbourhood, helping folks?”

“No. That was Sunbeam bread.”

“The one with all the athletes?”

“That’s VivaBread!” Micky sat forward to fiddle with the radio.

“Oh. The family on the farm?”

“Nature Bread… You’re putting me on, right? ‘Wonder Bread? The greatest thing since—”’

‘“Sliced bread,”’ Mike remembered along with him, nodding. ‘“Helps build strong bodies twelve ways.”’

‘“Made from batter, not dough, so—”’

‘“It has no holes!”’ Mike remembered. “And the company sponsored Howdy Doody. Well, shame you didn’t get it.”

“Oh, but I did!”

Micky’s voice was _fluting_, Mike thought. Or was that fluted? Both, maybe. Or maybe more like pan-pipes than a flute. No, that would imply reedy, where Micky’s voice was clear, both when he spoke and when he sang. And when he sang… Mike still felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. With the right material… Bell-like, was that the adjective? Bellish? God, he was tired. The day had been a very long and a very unexpected and a very exhausting one, both the work and meeting so many different people and then…those three.

“Yeah?” Mike thought he’d better join in. Not that the kid didn’t seem capable of holding a conversation all by himself, doing all the different voices, but Mike was interested.

“Yeah! My agent told me the concept was Howdy Doody coming to life, so there I was—turn up here—hair dyed red, rictus grin, freckles dotted on in brown paint—”

“Forty-eight freckles, one for each State at the time.” Mike turned onto Sunset, just after the Strip.

“Yeah! Boy, you watched a lot of TV as a kid, huh? And I did all the moves…” He jerked his arms and head around. “And I got it!”

Mike had to swerve suddenly around a car in front of him that slowed for the passenger-side door to open and someone to lean out and toss his cookies. He flung out an arm, to secure Micky, and yelled at the moron as they passed. Goddam idiot. Still, being in a small car like the Beetle meant that tall guys like him and Micky were practically using their bent knees as seatbelts anyway.

“But it wasn’t really a part, a job!” Micky didn’t seem bothered by the manoeuvre. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. “It was just the studio’s way of warning the puppet that he wasn’t irreplaceable, to keep him in line – he’d been making demands, you know?”

“No,” Mike had to admit.

“And it worked. Damn marionette toed the line after. But not before he bust up the audition, yelling until I was removed.”

“Pity. Damn marionette.” Mike liked the phrase. Decided to use it.

“Oh, my sister got revenge for me. She talked her way onto a filming as an audience member, a—”

“Howdy Doodette,” Mike supplied.

“Right! Then she whipped out a pair of scissors and rushed the stage! She’d cut through two of his strings before security nabbed her. Turn up here into Coldwater Canyon.”

“What?” Mike glanced at what could be seen of the hills looming in the dark, the paths snaking between them inky and narrow.

“Yeah. I told you it was a…” Micky drew a breath. “_Road—_”

“Okay, okay! Just, you know, feel I should be wearing a uniform and a peaked cap.”

“Really?” Micky paused. “Well, I’m not sure…but if you pull over, I can…look in the hood?”

“No—” Mike’s turn to take a deep breath. “So, what happened then? About the job that wasn’t?”

“Oh, we’re both _persona non grata_ at the Continental Baking Company. Yeah, they told me I’d never eat a Twinkie in this town again.”

“And yet you did.” Mike scrunched a wrapper from the dashboard.

“Yeah.” Micky gave that ripple-giggle again. “I never do as I’m told.”

“Duly noted.” Although Mike could’ve figured that out for himself.

His passenger sank back in his seat and Mike thought he was asleep, except he talked some more, about the longest-running show he’d been in, in which he’d had the lead role, and then about his family—cousins—in Texas, which seemed to lead to a story about the last time he’d almost been caught out after curfew. By the sheriff’s department, patrolling West Hollywood Park after a free concert, and he’d climbed a tree to hide, only to find all the branches already occupied by curfew-breaking young girls, “Like some sorta magic _chick_ tree, man!” And all that was interspersed with directions, to take the North Venture Freeway, coast above Sherman Oaks, go along the 101…

“Drop down Valanden Avenue.” Micky pointed into the dark.

“Jesus, where are we?” Mike couldn’t help exclaiming. “The boonies?”

“The valley. Coming into Tarzana.”

A couple of minutes saw them turning off the road and bumping down a grassy track.

“What?” Micky studied him.

“Well, I guess I kind of expected a movie star mansion, all white pillars and swimming pools, like in a silver screen magazine, but it’s more like a farm?”

“Oh, yeah. We actually lived in one of those when I was a kid. Big white house in the big white movie star part of the valley, where I used to play with Bing’s kids and Dean’s kids and Frank’s kids – go down the side here. We were always doing dares, and they’d dare me to take my clothes off when the tour bus passed by. Always—stop here. We’re here. And…”

“And?” Mike thought he could guess what was coming. Which, he betted, was more than the poor critters who’d paid their money to go on a motor tour of movie idols’ mansions had…

“And I’d always do it. _Every_ time.” Micky got out and stretched. “Even to this day, I see a bus, I gotta stop myself pulling my pants down, man!”

Mike had no idea how much of that was true. Probably…all of it. This seemed more authentic than the schtick Micky had done on stage. The house and garden, or field, looked nice, from what Mike could make out. He could hear chickens, he thought, and maybe some other birds? He fished Micky’s clothes from the back seat just in case he needed them and turned to what looked like a little cottage, Micky’s destination. “What, they lock up the main house at midnight? No admittance after the clock strikes twelve, that kind of deal?”

“No! Well, a bit. But Mom made this over.” Micky waved his keys at the small, squat building, as if expecting to open it like that, then dropped them. Mike found them and opened the door. “She’s making a separate entrance from the track, a proper pathway and nice patio around the front—I’ll show you—and everything. I hang out here more and more—getting used to it, you know?”

“It’s for you? What, you getting married or something? Like, two women in one kitchen don’t go?”

“Hardly.” Micky waved Mike in and span in a slow circle in the biggish studio apartment inside. “It’s gonna be my bachelor pad.”

“Really?” That seemed odd, to Mike.

“Yeah. Oh, you know how it is. Like I said earlier, I need my independence and I wanna live closer to a beach now I’m focusing on my surfing, but Mom doesn’t want me to leave home. I’m the eldest, the only male, and now I’m the man of the house. So she made me this. Whatcha gonna do?” Micky shrugged.

The long room, a door at either end, had fixtures but few fittings, and even fewer furnishings, Mike saw, and Micky followed his gaze. “Not finished yet. But it’ll look really cool when it is, huh?”

“I guess.” It suddenly hit Mike that he was way out here, in the valley…with no transport home. He sank onto a chair at the plastic table near the small kitchen, his brain trying to come up with a solution. Could he take Micky’s Bug to get home in and meet Micky somewhere downtown tomorrow to hand it over, if Micky could get there? He looked up and his mouth worked faster than his brain. “Can I crash here tonight?”

“Well, sure!” Micky finished tuning the radio to his satisfaction. “Only one thing though…” He tipped his head back and Mike followed the direction of his gaze…to the other end of the room and the upper-level sleeping platform running along the top of the wall where the triangular window sat above the front door. “Or, only one bed, I should say.”

“Ah.” Mike cast a glance around for sofas or couches and came up with one armchair and two kitchen chairs.

“I’m cool with it.” Micky swung a finger from himself to Mike then jerked his thumb up to the mattress on its bedframe.

“I’m…” And how to finish that?

“Oh, I’m not…_so_.” Micky shook his head. “Not _light_,” he clarified, when Mike looked lost. His mouth twisted into a flat half-smile. “It’s a common misconception amongst civilians that all actors, or ex-actors, or wannabe-actors are, but…”

“Huh?” was the best Mike could manage.

Micky sighed, pacing to and fro. “How to put it in terms that… Got it.” He cleared his throat. “I ain’t no goddamn queer, boy!”

“Micky…don’t.” Mike grabbed his elbow. “Don’t…any of it.” He wanted to say more, about all the schtick and the gags, the choice of material and songs that had been Micky’s routine on stage, but how could he? What right did he have? “You’re better than that,” he finished.

“I’m sorry.” Micky stood still, his arm still in Mike’s hand, his eyes level with Mike’s and looking deep into them. “I know. It’s crass. Inane, even.”

“Woah. SAT words.” Realizing he was still holding Micky, Mike dropped his hand.

“Oh, I got me a word of the day calendar. It’s improved my loquaciousness _exponentially_! Only, I’m so haphazard, so desultory, that I’m still on April twentieth. Such opprobrium, huh?” Micky stumbled over to the armchair. “You could sleep here, put another chair there for your legs?”

“Or…” Mike’s turn to look into Micky’s eyes. His unusual almond-shaped eyes with a clear, honest light in them. “Or for once I don’t kick a gift horse in the teeth. Or in this case, a gift bed in the mattress.” He grinned.

“Neat! Oh, excuse me.” Micky put a hand over his rumbling stomach, then laughed when Mike’s grumbled in sympathy. “We need to eat. And you wanna shower?”

“You sayin’ I smell?” Mike crooked his elbow and sniffed his sleeve.

“I guess we both do. That place was ripe, man!”

“It smelled of pot!” Mike exclaimed, suddenly wondering if that was what had attracted those cops back on the boulevard. “People were… That blond guy—”

“Peter?”

“Yeah. Peter. Was a pothead. I mean, a dope smoker.” Mike tried to trade Texas heavy weather for California breeze. Peter had left them, gone to hang out with another group, and come back redder of eye and looser of speech.

“I guess. Well, help yourself to clothes or pjs and we’ll have a sleepover! I’ll go and raid the icebox.” Rubbing his hands, Micky made for the other door, calling, “Through there,” over his shoulder.

_Through there_, the door next to the ladder up to the platform, turned out to be the bathroom. It was small but the hot water plentiful and the soap and shampoo nice. The little stack of special interest magazines showed Micky spent time in there, and it made Mike laugh. The room smelled like Micky’s car had. He found sweatpants and a tee and when he came out, Micky was petting a chicken and a pigeon, and talking to a cat.

“Hey, nice!” Micky pointed at Mike’s torso. “That could be our band name!”

“The Tees? The Cotton Tees?”

“Triumph! The Triumphs? The Four Triumphs? Micky and the Triumphs?” Micky rubbed his chin, and the cat swiped at his fingers.

“We can hash it out over supper. There is supper, right? Seeing as I’m a guest and all…” Mike looked in the hessian sack that hadn’t been on the kitchen counter before.

“Yeah, the house was locked, but this was in the outside storage larder, and it had our names all over it.”

Mike blinked: for a second, he could have sworn MIKE N MICKY was emblazoned on the bag, over and over. Wow. He needed to get some shut-eye.

“Loaf of bread, pat of butter, jar of honey and four eggs? It’s all fresh and homemade and new laid, but it’s gonna make a weird meal,” he remarked, taking out the food items as he named them.

“No, it’ll be a Micky Special. You’ll see. Scrambled or fried?”

“Why not both?” Mike teased.

“Hey, I like the way you think, Nesmith!” Micky waved a pan in each hand at him.

“Why, thank you, Dolenz.” Mike found the bread knife and shooed the chicken from the counter top.

“You got a weird name!” they said together.

“And we’re both not really Michael?” Micky asked, dropping knobs of butter into both pans.

“Mike, Micky. Micky, Mike.” Mike pointed from him to his host and back again as if in introduction, cursing as the cat swiped at his finger.

“No, I mean I’m George and you’re Robert.”

“But I don’t use that name,” they said together.

Mike sliced bread and spread the slices with honey. Micky dolloped scrambled eggs onto one and slid fried eggs onto another and Mike topped them with more honey-laden slices, then cut them in half and shared them out. They ate sitting up at the counter, the breadboard as a plate, and it didn’t need Micky’s, “Watch out for Fe. She steals food,” to have Mike guarding his meal from the cat.

“Fe?” he asked.

“Short for Feline. It’s her name.”

“Of course it is.”

“Good sandwich, huh?” Micky wheedled, racing to dab oozing egg yolk from his chin before it slid off.

“_Interesting,_” Mike conceded, keeping his sandwich squeezed together to prevent leaks, and a beady eye on the cat and birds.

He tidied up while Micky showered, and, when the water stopped, washed the pans and kitchenware. When Micky came out and joined him, in striped cotton pj pants and a radio station tee, that nice scent Mike had been smelling everywhere came with him and Mike realized belatedly it was Micky. Sort of salty breeze plus citrus-grove dew. _Eau de Micky._ It had him fighting a snigger. “Nothing. Oh, you got real curly hair.”

“What? How did that happen, when _Gentleman’s Coiffeur Monthly_ says straight hair is in this season!” Micky’s comical face cracked Mike up, but his yawn had Mike yawning too. They headed for the ladder.

“Sure you don’t mind?” Mike paused at one side of the bed, thinking he should do the polite thing and give Micky a last chance to change his mind.

“You’ll find there’s not much I mind,” Micky assured him, diving in, his voice coming muffled as he rummaged under his pillow. He kept his back turned and when he lay flat, he had an ancient teddy bear cuddled to his chest and a retainer in his mouth. “C’mon.” He flipped back the blanket for Mike and, when Mike climbed in, turned onto his side, facing away.

Mike lay a little stiffly and Micky sighed. “I won’t do anything,” he snarked, over his shoulder. “Well, sleep. Snore. Breathe. Dream.”

“And shush?” Mike, on his side too, went to hold a hushing finger to Micky’s lips, but Micky grabbed his hand and tugged him nearer, slotting Mike’s arm under his and taking his hand in both of his, under his Ted.

“When you’re in a new place, it’s good if someone holds your hand.” His voice slowed. “It…grounds…you.”

“Tha’ righ’.” Mike’s eyes closed.

“Yeah, that and I like to snuggle.”

Mike settled himself, spooning Micky, which made him think of something. “Oh, heh, sorry iffen I do,” he whispered, giving the tiniest move of his hips to make his meaning clear. A guy couldn’t be held responsible for any involuntary growth that might occur when he was sleeping, but he’d rather not freak the kid out, or give him any ideas. He seemed to have enough of his own.

“Oh yeah? And sorry iffen you don’t?” came back in a perfect replica of his voice.

“Well, sure!” Mike fluted, as light and breezy Cali-casual as any native. “Night, Micky.”

“Night, Papa Nez.”

_Wut?_ But before Mike could ask how Micky knew his nickname from back home, he was asleep, Micky’s slim, tan hands cradling his paler one in soft, warm comfort.

And it was a fathoms-deep, bottomless caverns of respite kind of slumber, easy and sweet, Mike’s nose sometimes prodding Micky’s ear, and Micky’s curls sometimes tickling Mike’s face in a seamless tit-for-tat. A sleep that was only broken hours later by the back door opening and someone coming in.

“Hey, Bilbo Baggins! I saw you weren’t in your usual hob—oh.”

Mike sat bolt upright, staring down at the teenage girl. “It’s, heh, not what it looks like,” he began, raking his swoop of hair away from his eyes.

“Oh? So you’re not the sorry sap who had to bring _his_ sorry ass home?” she queried, shooing away a parakeet.

“Well yeah, then it is what it looks like. And don’t cuss. You’re too young.” Probably. Mike tried to work out her age. Micky was baby-faced…He glanced down and got a shock to see Micky’s feet—he must have wriggled himself right around in the night; his head now faced the other way.

The girl set down the dish she was carrying and jerked her head to flick back the long lock of hair that fell from her not a crop and not a bob haircut onto her face. Her similar to Micky’s face. Which reminded Mike— “You ain’t got a pair of scissors stashed away somewhere, do you?”

“No.” The girl took the lid of the dish and waved it, wafting the food smell around. Mike’s mouth watered and he bit back a moan. The girl’s small face took on a calculating look. “Bacon and sausage and mushroom. Oh, and tomatoes. There should be enough for two…”

“Well, that’s mighty sisterly of you, miss!”

“If you do me a favor,” the teenager continued, walking up to the ladder and continuing, taking Mike’s stunned silence for assent. “This studio – Mom built it and she’s fitting it out to _rent_ it out. It’s not some sort of teen-paradise Wendy house for Micky. He just got that idea in his thick head and Mom can’t find a way to tell him the real truth of it. So she asked me. And now I’m asking you.”

“So that’s what the cooked breakfast is for? To soften the blow when you tell—”

“When _you_ tell,” the girl corrected Mike, with a huge smile. One that said, _Sucker_.

“No need.” With a huge yawn, Micky sat up at Mike’s side, rumple-headed and bagged-eyed. “I heard.”

“Aww, Micky, I’m sorry,” his sister called up.

“’S’okay.” Micky stood and stretched. “I guess I better start looking seriously for some other place to live.”

‘“For everything there is a season,”’ Mike agreed, setting Ted on the pillow, just for the fun of seeing Micky whip him out of sight.

‘“Turn, turn, turn’… Ooh, groups that spell their names funny! Like the Byrds…the Beatles, and, and the O’Kaysions…”

“Cacography,” Micky’s sister interrupted him. “That’s what it’s called. It means sensational spelling for humorous effect.”

“Word of the day, huh?” Mike inquired.

“You know it, Tex. March fifteen,” the girl agreed.

“Oh, Mike, Coco. Coco, Mike,” Micky threw in, spitting out his retainer and scrabbling into his robe.

“With an _E_,” Mike added.

“Well, it’s given me an idea!” Micky announced.

“Why do I think it’s one of a long, long line?” Mike muttered.

With a, “Geronimo!” Micky dropped from the railing around the sleeping platform to the floor below.

Mike narrowed his eyes. That looked…familiar, although he’d never seen it before. How could he? He’d never been here before. And only met the guy yesterday. And it didn’t feel like déjà vu, but more…a glimpse into the future. Huh…

“Tell me more about your idea, Micky,” he invited, taking the more sensible ladder downward.

Only seven words, Small ones too. Not SAT words, or calendar words. But words big enough and powerful enough to set the future, a far-out, music-filled, ocean-breeze and citrus-tang and blond multi-instrumentalist and ladies’-man from England LA future, in motion. Mike smiled wide at the thought and stepped forward into it.


	2. Spring, 1965

Mike felt guilty for being annoyed that no one had fallen into the pond yet. As soon as he’d seen the ornamental pool of water in the back garden of the fraternity house, he’d thought it an accident waiting to happen. Those little stone animal things dotted here and there around its edge, spouting water? _Come on! _A frat member or guest at the April Fools party they’d been hired to play at wouldn’t even need to be very smashed to stumble over one of _those_ trip hazards.

Micky had acted out the scenario—Mike’s grab at the back of his shirt stopping him from following his trajectory to its end—and agreed. He’d gotten the others involved, and their discussion had progressed from if it would happen to _when_, something in which they all now had a stake. Or, to give it its correct name, a bet. They tended to have a good few of them going on at any given time. Davy followed the direction of Mike’s gaze and banged his tambourine on his wrist, indicating the time and Mike’s loss—Mike had betted on a plunge before and up to ten o’clock.

Mike pretended not to see that, or Davy’s sly grin at Peter, instead leading the Monkees into the final chorus of their theme song, as they called it. They opened and closed their set with it and that made four times they’d played it this evening— not having that large a repertoire yet, after being together for only six months, they’d played their set through twice. This was the loudest Micky had screamed it yet, though.

“Thank you. We’ll be back after a short break.” When they’d be repeating their softest, most romantic songs, as per the agreement with… Biff? Brawn? Brute? Whatever his name was, the organizer—as much as there seemed to be one—of this University of Southern California fraternity on Greek Row, or University Park’s 28th Street. This frat, Kappa Beta, known as—

“_Tappa Kegger! Tappa Kegger! Ohhhhhhh!_”

“Do they chant that whenever there’s a lull?” Davy asked, wincing at the cheers coming from the den, the back of which opened onto the garden where they were playing. Another shout came as the four of them headed in through the massive French windows, but not one to do with them, Mike felt. They were getting plenty of congratulations and compliments, though.

“It’s when a new guest makes it through the April Fools rooms to this main area.” Inside the den, Peter looked over at the newcomers, and when Davy saw they were a group of chicks, he straightened up and soothed out his expression.

More interested in getting a drink, Mike made for the long refreshment table, Micky beating him to it. “Hey, watch out in case the flavors are switched in the cold drinks, Mick,” Mike cautioned. He didn’t know, but it’d be in keeping with the ass-backward theme of the party. “What you think is cola could be—”

“Beer, please!” A beaming Micky handed over a slip of blue paper to the chick at the big metal barrel. Mike stared. “Oh, the voucher? I got it in a balloon I burst in the balloon room. Thanks!” he said to the keg keeper, licking at the froth that foamed over the top of his tin cup. “Great idea, having a keg.”

“_Tappa kegger!_” blasted out from behind them, making Micky almost spill his beer.

“Oh, it’s automatic, if you say the word.” Davy’s nod said he thought he was getting it. “Was that the only slip of paper you got? Because as well as the gift vouchers, some of the papers in the balloons were to do with forfeits, I think I heard Jack saying?”

“Yeah, I got another gift voucher. I’m saving it for later.” Micky looked coy.

“And you got showered with dirt in the piñata room,” Mike reminded him. It’d taken them ages to brush Micky’s band shirt clean, Mike having to stop Davy slapping Micky hard in the process. “Why did you have to go through so many rooms in the house?” Although he knew, of course: Micky had wanted some fun.

“I was looking for the bathroom!” Micky protested, holding his beer out of Davy’s reach.

“And was it the one with the WET PAINT sign or the OUT OF ORDER sign?” Peter asked, as if had knowledge or experience of these types of frat pranks.

“Well, it wasn’t the room that said GENTS. That was a store cupboard,” Micky told them.

In the pause that greeted this, Mike made sure not to catch anyone’s eye. Not when they were all wondering if Micky had used it anyway. “Say, let’s get some food?” he suggested. Micky should blot up that beer he’d gulped double-quick.

The Kappa Betas had been more than generous, telling them to wander wherever they wanted and help themselves to whatever they wanted. He looked around. It was easy to see which guests had been caught out by which April Fool tricks in the piñata or the trip-wire rooms. They were the people covered in earth, confetti, flour and even dotted in puffs of purple paint, with the occasional lucky one carrying handfuls of candy.

“But April first was yesterday, Thursday,” one over-literal guest was exclaiming as she mopped at herself with a towel. “Today’s April second.”

“That’s the joke!” a guy with his letterman’s sweater on backward and his shoes on the wrong feet assured her.

“I reek!” companied a girl from the affiliated sorority, if the huge sweatshirt she wore was any indication. She didn’t seem to have anything on underneath.

“Well you smashed a stink bomb when you stood on a balloon in the balloon room to burst it. They’re in the red ones,” a guy explained, as if that was obvious.

“Guess we should be glad Micky didn’t,” muttered Davy. “Or…would we know?”

“Ouch,” Mike replied to the zinger. Which reminded him: he’d let Micky out of his sight—oh, no, he was at the buffet.

Micky held up a paper plate with PAPER PLATE written on it. “What with this and drinking from tin cans, it’s like being back at the pad,” he commented.

“Not so. We don’t use Ken-L-Ration or Puss-In-Boots cans. We have _some_ class,” Peter protested.

“No, we just don’t have any pets,” came Micky’s counter.

“And no one in the pad greases the doorknobs.” Mike had almost fallen for it earlier. Now he sympathized with another guest rubbing a sprained wrist and a bruised forehead. The food claimed his attention. He’d had a Laddie-Boy tin of what had turned out to be chocolate soup earlier, so moved on to the meatloaf and mashed potato masquerading as chocolate and cream cupcakes.

“Nice dichotomy.” Peter indicated Mike’s choice, then helped himself to a triangle of grilled cheese sandwich and a few curly fries with ketchup on them. “I’m having dessert first.”

“Dessert?”

Peter held the triangle to Mike’s lips for him to nibble the end.

“Ah.” It was pound cake with frosting. He guessed the ‘fries’ were the same. “Neat.” He took a half-step back from Peter.

“Everything’s backward,” Micky exclaimed. His band shirt was too, now. Huh. He stuffed a mini-hamburger into his mouth and from the glee on his face, Mike guessed it was a cookie. “This was a great idea!” came thickly.

“Told you it would work.” Mike didn’t try that hard to keep the triumph from his voice. He’d persuaded the others that the Monkees should take the job, even though it would mean playing for much longer than they had material for. “No one’s noticed.”

“Not the way people are arriving in waves and milling around and—”

“So many girls!”

Mike would have thought that was Davy if the voice hadn’t been American and coming from higher up than Davy’s usually did. He turned. “Oh, hi…erm, Biff,” he risked. Or was it Thump? Or Smack? Something like that, anyway.

“You got, like, a busloada chicks coming to see you!” MaybeBiff slapped Davy on the back, and Davy staggered a step before righting himself. He preened. Yeah, the l’il biscuit’s looks and English charm hooked the girls. Whether they remained that way or wiggled free after getting up close and personal with the Manchester Marauder was another matter.

“You Pelicans rock!” ProbablyBiff continued, throwing them some complicated salute with both hands.

“No no, not the Pelicans,” Mike explained again. “They had to cancel, remember, when two of them got called up?”

“Right! And _we_ called up the union and asked for a similar group.” Biff nodded.

“And didn’t specify in what sense similar,” Davy muttered. “Although Charlene would have thought of us anyway, the amount of time you make us hang out in there.”

“Works, though.” Mike winked. “We’ve gotten some…interesting last-minute gigs, right?”

“_Riiighht…_” Davy’s agreement came slower.

Biff walked off, sloshing a plastic sandcastle bucket of beer. “Hey, go careful with the brownies and the jello,” he called over one large shoulder.

“Hi!” A blonde with sky-blue eyes appeared in front of them, looking from Mike to Peter. “You don’t remember me.”

“Erm, sorry, no,” Mike replied, frowning in an effort to recall and at her very definite tone. He peered around for Micky. Oh, with some chick. Well, trying to be. He nearly got hit when she threw her long braid of hair back over her shoulder.

“Oh, we haven’t met,” the blonde continued. “You saw my photo.”

She didn’t look like a model, but… “Davy?” Mike called. The next blonde was his and not Mick’s, he thought. Davy sprang up in between him and the chick like a mushroom.

“You know my parents,” she continued. “My dad said you’re long-haired weirdos, but my mom thinks you’re cute. Especially the small one. Which one’s that?”

“Erm…” Mike patted Davy, toe to toe with the chick, on the head.

“’Ello, luv!” he chirped.

“She says he’s got a cute English accent?”

“’Ow d’yer do, darlin’?” Davy tried again, swinging his accent over to Cockney.

“Like one of the Beatles?” the blonde added.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s gear,” said Davy, in a rising tone, and the girl shrieked and clapped her hands.

“I heard it then! And I think it’s nice of you all to introduce yourselves to the neighbors when they arrive for their long weekends in their vacation houses, now winter’s over.”

None of them said they’d been hoping to be offered food.

“You weren’t with them. The Willises,” Davy said.

“No. I go here.” The girl took a scooping of something that looked like cat crap. Mike…hoped it was an actual dessert, and not—

“He—oh, you mean the affiliate sorority, farther down Greek Row?” Mike congratulated himself on having learned the correct terms.

“No, really here. The frat.” She pointed around her. “There was a mix-up with the request forms, because of my name. I’m called Toby.”

“Oh, ’cause of your dad being William? Lucky you weren’t Willamina, then,” Davy said.

“My brother is.” Toby gave a sad nod. “We’re twins. There was a mix-up with the birth certificate forms.”

Mike got the feeling there were a lot of mix-ups, with this girl.

“Janey goes to the sorority.” Toby dragged a small brunette in a massive sweatshirt and no shoes out from behind her. “She’s not very good at this sort of thing, but she wants to ask the blond one something. Which one’s that?”

Mike frowned, almost worried for Toby. He moved aside as Janey stepped right up to Peter and stared him in the eye.

“Was that a 6073 Gretsch you were playing?” she demanded.

“Yessss?” he replied, startled, looking at them out of the corners of his eyes.

_You’re on your own_, Mike tried to signal. Peter could take care of himself. Mike half-listened to the girl asking about chord tones in a walking baseline he’d played, one she sang out loudly, and Davy asking Toby what she was studying, to which she replied _all_ her classes, she wasn’t slacking off, why, what had he heard and he’d better not repeat it, especially around Beechwood, before he was beckoned away.

And it was a fruitful conversation, with some guy from the school of law who was taking a beach house out at Huntington with his pals in July, and wanted a cool band for their inauguration party, one that would bring in the chicks and…

Then it was time to round up Micky, because they still had another, much smaller, set to play, mostly Davy singing the romantic songs he enjoyed lending his vocals to, and which went over well. Mike made sure they finished with Micky’s _Sometime in the Morning_, and was pleased when the lamps swaying in the trees showed that more than a few of their audience’s eyes were teary. Mike wanted that crystalline voice to shine, not only for the group, but to get Micky himself his due recognition.

He supposed he had the habit of looking out for Micky, and not just in terms of getting him good material and working on his musicianship, but providing guidance and help in other areas of his life. Like now, trying to signal to him that the girl he’d been trying to come on to was right down at the front, with a raven-haired chick who’d been giving _him_ the eye—he kinda thought—and Toby and Janey, who’d been there for the entire set, eyes glued to Davy and Peter.

Huh. For someone who came over as shy and a little naïve, even a little, well, _dumb_ at times, Peter seemed to get his fair share of chicks after him. Mike narrowed his eyes. For the first time, he wondered if some of that wasn’t, well, not an act, but a bit…put on? Pondering that, he missed a little, and the next he knew, the foursome were heading off up the main staircase to an upper level.

“To talk music,” Peter called as they ascended.

“Oh, we’re not gonna make out?” Toby inquired, going to turn back until Davy grabbed her elbow.

Mike helped himself to a piece of normal-looking chocolate dessert from a full tray just set out. He needed energy to stow his guitar and Micky’s drums into their Woodie station wagon, the vehicle that Peter called a surf-wagon. He had to take Micky’s instrument—Micky could barely fit a cheeseburger in that Bug of his. Mike would be glad when the car Micky was promising, one big enough for the whole band and all their kit, came to fruition. He made his final trip back to the darkened garden for the last small things, but couldn’t see them.

“Looking for this?” The dark-haired girl stood from where she’d been sitting on a garden bench and indicated the small instrument bag at her side. It held spare guitar strings and picks, Micky’s sticks and Davy’s percussion stuff. She took a step up to Mike. “I hope you’re looking for this, too…”

He took the slip of pink paper she held out and tilted it to the lamp in the tree near the bench to read it. _Voucher_, was typed on it. _The bearer is entitled to one kiss. Your refusal incurs a forfeit._ He must be tiring: his brain was working slowly to put the pieces together. Vouchers. Earlier—

“Oh.” The girl went to take it back. “I suppose you think women shouldn’t go after men.”

“Ma’am…” Mike tipped his wool hat back as though it was a Stetson. “Ah think a woman should go after _anything_ she chooses to.”

He moved slowly, drawing it out until her smile softened her lips just so, the light in her eyes turned from a warm glow to a heated desire, and her body tilted to his just right before closing the gap between them. He moved in fully on her, sliding his hands into position and taking her lips, letting her response guide the direction and pressure of his hands and the demand of his mouth. Within a minute he’d opened her lips with his and gotten his tongue involved, its gentle touches becoming caresses that subdued her attempts to mimic or reciprocate—subdued then dominated.

She sagged a little when he released her, and he kept his mouth close to hers, synching their breathing and brushing her lips with his before pulling back. She staggered and grabbed at the arm of the bench behind her. “Hot damn!” she exclaimed.

“You’re too pretty to be cussing, ma’am.” Mike stroked his forefinger down her nose, his smile set to _crooked charm_.

“I…you. _You._ Are you seeing anyone?” she blurted out.

“You, right now, darlin’.” Mike gave her another look in the eyes.

“Oh, I meant—”

“I know. I’m teasing you. It’s something I do.” Mike let the pause stray into suggestive territory. “I just split up with a girl.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” He caught the muttered, “_For her_,” as he was meant to. “Mike, right? So, can I see you to your car?”

For someone trying to be pushy, she seemed kinda jokey with it. He liked that. “Sure. Hey, listen, erm…”

“Kat.”

“Kat? That’s cute. We’re playing at the Old Brewery, Downtown in the warehouse district they’re trying to make into an arts district. This weekend. You should come along.”

As Kat agreed and pressed for details, Mike saw Micky come out from behind the tree next to the bench and stride over to the pond, to approach the long-braid chick there. He held out what Mike now knew was a kiss voucher. Huh.

The loud _splash_ and whoops had Mike whipping around to peer through the dark. “What—” A guy lay on his back in the water.

“Chet.” Kat sniffed. “He always falls in. And usually about now.”

Which reminded Mike to check his watch. Davy had won the sweepstake. _Of course. That l’il—_ Well, at least the guy with an inflatable ring tossed around his neck, pond weed dripping on his head, and spitting out goldfish from his mouth, wasn’t Micky.

***

Mike had to pull over on the way home, he felt so…what? Happy? Mellow? More so than he’d have thought a kiss and the prospect of a date with a cute chick would cause. But the feeling was soft and nice. Warm and not smooth, but coming in waves, somehow. Ripples? Swells? Whatever, it made him too relaxed to bother taking the instruments into the pad, instead just pulling the car into the garage and locking up. The weather must be gearing up for summer—he felt warm. Hot, maybe? In the kitchen, the ice box door was open, a freaky connection to his feeling of a moment before. He closed it and caught a slight noise from the downstairs bedroom.

He walked in, expecting Peter, he discovered, but the lower half of a body sticking out from under the bed wasn’t him. “Micky.”

A _thunk_, a shake and a yelp told him a startled Micky had hit his head on the under side of the bed frame. _Ooh. _Mike tried to wince but his face wouldn’t cooperate.

“How d’you know it’s me?” came muffled. “We all got the same pants and boots. _Beatle_ boots and not—”

“_Flamenco_ boots. Yeah. I’m hip. I’m a child of the new hip. I can see it’s you!”

“I coulda been Pete,” said an obstinate tone.

_With that flat ass?_ Mike stopped himself saying. But as if he could mistake it for Peter’s much more—

“I coulda been Mr. Schneider…”

Mike still thought it was weird how, when they’d had a meeting to write down possible names for that damn marionette, they’d all written…Mr. Schneider.

“Except for Davy, who put Mr because he didn’t put a period after the Mr., ‘because it’s a contraction and not an abbreviation, and contractions don’t take a period,”’ Micky parroted, jumping into Mike’s train of thought.

“Full stop. Not period. Davy shudders at that word.” Mike still thought it a funny quirk.

“He’s got like, a half-dozen sisters. But how did you know it was me?” Micky sounded quite belligerent.

“You got longer legs. Hey, need help there?”

“Yeah! Shove me farther under?”

Mike dropped to his knees, harder and faster than he’d intended, finding himself a little heavy in the head, and pushed Micky under the bed by his skinny ankles. Only then did he think to ask, “Whatcha doing?”

“I’m looking for pot,” came back in a stifled voice. “I guess I smelled it at the frat and just fancied smoking up, ya know?”

“’S’not your birthday.” Mike giggled. Peter had turned him on, on his, and that was an expression Mike found…funny. And on Micky’s, last month, they’d smoked, too.

“Heave me out?”

Mike complied, moving for an extra-rumpled Micky to sit leaning against the bed. “Oh, I just felt like some. After I struck out.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Like a spent match.”

“What? Braidy lady wouldn’t kiss you, when you showed her your voucher?”

“Oh no, she kissed me all right. A peck on the cheek.”

“Oooh. That’s the worst kinda kiss.” Mike rubbed at the spot Micky tapped, on his cheek.

“Then she ripped up my coupon. Right in front of me. Made it into confetti and tossed it in the air.”

Mike snorted and coughed in laughing and trying not to. Micky’s extravagant mime and over-the-top dejection had him asking, “How much beer d’you drink back there?”

“One!”

“Hmm. And here?”

“Nothing! All I brought back was some of that jello dessert they put out at the end. Well, a lot. I love—”

“Jello. We know.”

“I wanted to have it for breakfast, but I ate it all up!” Micky giggled. “Didn’t you bring anything?”

“Oh, man, I forgot!” That had them both laughing. “I had some of that chocolate cake. Not cake. Brownie. A real big square, about a half-hour ago. I needed the energy, you know?” He went to flex his muscles, to illustrate taking care of the instruments, but Micky, eyebrows furrowed, laid a hand on one biceps.

“Lemme see your eyes.” He kneeled over Mike, close as the summer air. “They’re red.”

“Mick!” Mike exclaimed. “You smell of drink.”

His realization of, “Booze in the jello!” harmonized with Micky’s deduction of, “Pot in the brownies!”

“_Ohhhh,_” they said together, Micky subsiding.

A memory tried to wriggle its way through Mike’s relaxed brain. “That guy, Biff, or Slap, or Tickle, or whatever, said to take some brownies and jello. No, that’s not it. Said to take care of them.”

“That makes no sense,” Micky objected.

“Take no nonsense from? Was that it?”

“How d’you feel?”

Mike tried to shrug, to show the ripple he was feeling, was a part of, but it stuck, slow and oozey, like a vat of molasses, making him giggle. “Interesting.”

“Inter— You feel _interesting_?” Micky reached up to angle the bedside light away a little. It took him a few tries, after the alcohol jello. “Slap and tickle!” he spluttered. “And you were.”

Mike knew the Davy-ism. “Debra? We split up, man.”

“No. That chick in the garden.” Micky pointed at the door, in explanation.

“Kat.”

“Okay, that cat. Only she was more a fox.”

“K-kat.” Mike tried to sound the _K_. “Wait. You were watching? Up the tree?”

“Behind. What? You’re always saying I should take advantage of learning opportunities. And that, baby, was a _masterclass_. You’re _real_ good at kissing. Wish I was.”

“Your shirt’s on backward,” Mike replied, after a pause.

“And that hinders? Oh!” Micky wrenched it off.

Mike examined Micky’s chest, using a finger as well as his eyes. “Your hair’s coming in now.”

“Uh-huh. Late bloomer,” Micky agreed. He fanned Mike’s face with a hand. “Aren’t you hot?”

“I really am,” Mike agreed, stripping his band shirt off.

“Well now, _that’s _hair.”

Micky’s tone had Mike laughing.

“So…”

“What?” he asked.

“So show me!”

Somehow Mike knew what Micky meant. “Mick. That?” He mimed it a little. “That’s for with girls!”

“And that’s what I want it for!”

Micky rolled a little and got to his knees, then heaved them both up onto the bed, where they lay across and not up down.

“Bed’s’re together?” Mike realized. “Guess Davy thought he was gonna score.”

“Scores so much he could win the FA Cup.”

“What’s that?”

“A soccer thing. No—”

“Not soccer, _foo-bawl_!” they yelled together.

A thud sounded, then another and Mike toed off his boots too, copying Micky.

“Please,” added Micky. “I need tips. I read stuff but…is it right? Like waiting the last ten percent?”

The shared understanding or whatever it was they all had thinned a little and failed Mike here. His face must’ve said as much, because Micky inched closer, his pelvis tipped up, his head tilted, his eyes on Mike’s lips, then paused. And paused.

“Oh, right. Waiting to make her close the last of the gap… That’s if you don’t know if she wants it. If you do know—and it’s that she _does_—go ahead and take that ten percent.” That…sounded a little dirty, didn’t it? He hadn’t meant—

“Show me. Because the last time I tried to be confident and take, I shoved the chick backward. Sue, remember?”

“Oh she was such a little-bitty thing, Mick! It wasn’t your fault.”

“She didn’t see it that way.”

“At least you grabbed her, before she fell over the railing. Good reflexes,” Mike praised. “She should’ve dated you for that, at least.” He knew what he meant.

“Thanks?” Micky sighed. “But remember Carla? At the Lemon Grove club? There, I’d definitely done all the checking-it-out little teases, you know? Finding ways to touch her hand, then arm and shoulder to show her my intentions… Our feet were touching, like, mine were touching hers and hers were touching mine back, man!”

“Right, that article in _Sassy Chick_! And she was biting her lip and looking at yours? Your lip, I mean?” Mike touched his to underscore.

“Yeahhh?” But Micky didn’t sound too sure. “I think that time I was reading all the body language—right—’cause we were looking into each other’s eyes and I’d moved closer, tilted my head to the right, parted my lips…everything.”

“And you weren’t breathing through your mouth, just ’cause it was open?”

“I can’t remember!” Micky wailed. “All I remember is her slapping my face! It _hurt_, Mike!”

Mike’s heart squeezed for him. “Here.” He eased closer—not that there was much space between them, lying as they were facing each other, curled into each other—and inclined his head, looking deep into Micky’s almond eyes, the look in them serious, for once, as seen in the low light. Micky copied his movements, their movements two halves of a whole, and they came together until their lips met, slow as syrup and sweet and natural as a honeycomb.

“And then?” Micky asked breathlessly against his lips. He smelled of something sugary and strong. Rum, maybe? Brandy? Had all the thick squares of jello in their little cases been different spirits? It was…nice. That word again. Mike couldn’t stop his lips curving up into a smile against Micky’s. “Mike?”

“Oh, aim for the lower lip. Just brush it. Then she’ll get your upper lip.” He pre-empted Micky’s question. “So you can bookend whatever you do in the middle, the main event, with the same movement against her lips before and after.”

“Groovy!” breathed Micky. “And the in between? The big event?” He licked his lips, using a lot of tongue.

Mike frowned. That was stilling the little undulation his body was feeling, that he was vibing to. “Go easy with the tongue at first. Don’t, I don’t know, be all _wet_ about it from the off. Wait until things heat up a little. You’ll know when.” Again he answered the question before Micky could ask it. “Yes, I c’n show you.” And again. “A soft caress, okay?” He demonstrated, a long and languid brushing of his tongue against Micky’s.

Even though he was the one initiating, Mike melted into the kiss. Poured into it, maybe, because he still felt that soft roll and stretch, like pulling taffy. Could taste it too, in Micky’s soft lips and tentative mouth. He sighed when it finished, and Micky’s eyes were all pupil.

“And when things heat up?” Micky whispered.

“Oh. Heh.” Mike sort of wanted to ask Micky if he were sure, but didn’t want to break the spell. He wanted to keep on kissing him. It could have been hours already. He went to close in, and found Micky already there. This kiss was harder and stronger, demanding surrender and getting a little resistance, that Mike grooved on, worked to overcome, his kiss now a challenge…and a promise.

“That’s…”

“Yeah,” Mike whispered, to complete Micky’s sentence. “Of course, the best kinda kiss involves more than the mouth.” Oh, the look on Micky’s face as he tried to work that one out. “Hands. A chick likes to know she’s in good hands, right?”

“Right. So…”

Mike stroked his nose down Micky’s to distract him from being pulled in close. He thought it worked: Micky’s eyes opened wide when Mike cupped his hip…and ass. “Pretend you’re a chick,” Mike murmured, sliding his other hand up Micky’s side, feathering across his soft skin and ignoring his xylophone ribs to come to rest under his chest. Micky seemed into the pretense, leaning in for another deep kiss and wriggling to get Mike’s thumb rubbing an ever-decreasing and increasing-pressure circle around his nipple, until he stroked the nub itself.

Mike felt Micky’s gasp in his mouth and a jolt of pride trickled its way through the thick stick of the caramel slowness enclosing him. Encasing _them_. He stroked Micky’s ass cheek, then tapped his hand down, all lazy, complicit understanding, and squeezed.

“_Ohhh._” Micky pulled away and heaved in air. “Now I know how that chick felt. She was weak at the knees, and mine feel like a pair of concertinas.”

“How would you know? You’re lying down,” Mike pointed out.

“Good for me.” Micky’s voice held none of its usual bounce and energy. “Mike, you’re a _seriously_ good kisser. I’m really turned on.”

“That’s the idea. Oh.” He got it. Couldn’t not when he was affected too. “Micky, we should, like, go.”

Micky shook his head. “I’m too drunk to move.”

“And I’m locked in place.” How much dope had been in that pot brownie, Mike wondered, in an abstract, uncaring way.

“Me you now!” Micky demanded, hovering like humming bird at his lips, and laughing, Mike complied, pulling back every so often to make a comment or explain a point.

“Don’t plunder like a pirate. That’s advanced level stuff. Got it.” Micky wiped his mouth a little—or a while—later. “I should be taking notes.”

“Nah. This is a practical. Hands on.” Mike sniggered. “Hey, Mick, Micky, don’t…undo your pants.”

“They’re too tight!”

“Ya shouldn’t eat so much dessert.”

“They’re not tight there.”

“I know, babe.” Mike flopped flat to giggle.

“I like you like this.”

Mike opened one eye—when had he closed them?—to see Micky leaning over him, propped on an elbow. “Don’t ya usually?”

“Oh yes. I like you just fine.”

“You’re an all-right guy too.”

Micky seemed to think that deserved another kiss. Maybe it did—he bestowed one anyway, one that turned deep and hard and had Mike moaning into Micky’s mouth and rocking into him. He was glad when Micky tore himself away and dropped down next to him.

“That kiss… You kinda dug it, huh?” Micky brushed the back of his hand over Mike’s crotch.

“Mick…” Reason and rationality buzzed, flies threatening the slow sweetness of the rolling honey caramel. “C’mere.” Mike gave him no choice, grabbing him to his chest, resting him over his heartbeat. “Just…breathe. Ride the ripple.”

Micky tried to squirm. “That better not be what you call your—”

Mike held his head down and pressed Micky’s face into his chest, only to squirm at Micky licking his skin.

“Just taking your temperature,” Micky explained.

“I don’t think that’s how… How is it?”

“You’re _hot._” Micky giggled.

Giggling was one thing, but Mike couldn’t deal with the wriggling. Not…there. Micky should be quiet and still. Okaaay… ‘“There’s a wonderland for Alice,”’ he crooned, shamelessly. ‘“There’s a tall beanstalk for Jack…’”

“Oh, you…” Micky was powerless against that song. “The sleepy train—”

“Will take you there. So safely down the track.” He’d never gotten much further than that and didn’t now: Micky was asleep.

And Mike must have been, because he was jolted awake at a hand on his shoulder. Someone stood at the side of the bed. _Peter?_

“Am I in the wrong room?” Peter asked.

“No.” Mike swallowed, cotton-mouthed.

“Oh, okay.” Peter wandered over to his side of the bed.

“Pete, this…” Mike became aware that _this_ was him, still lying shirtless and shoeless and curled up across the two beds, but alone. “Micky got a pink voucher,” was his attempt at an explanation.

“And… this is your forfeit?” An explanation Peter understood.

“No! He— Where _is_ Micky?”

“Someone’s in the bathroom tossing his cookies.”

“And his jello. Pete?”

Peter, down to his boxers, paused. Mike tried not to look, but was suddenly aware that he was seeing Peter’s skin in a non-beach, non-changing in dressing room, non-queuing for the shower way. “What’re you doing?”

“Getting into bed?”

“Oh, but then I should…” Mike tried to move. He knew he ought to pull free of the languor and lassitude still sucking him down, but really wanted to sink into it. _Wallow_ in it.

Peter shrugged. “I’m easy.”

That…that…was something Mike tucked away to figure out when he could. “This might sound weird, but could you roll me onto the floor?”

And it was weird, with non-beach, non-changing room, non-waiting almost-naked Peter touching Mike’s bare-chested him.

“Could we…not mention this? Ever?” Mike asked, getting to his hands and knees.

“This what?” Now under the blanket, Peter took a mostly eaten brownie from his nightstand and bit off a chunk.

Oh, okay. Peter’s red eyes and slow-dawning smile made sense. “Thanks.” Mike wasn’t sure who he was thanking, but was happy to do so.

He managed to crawl to the door, then to the stairs, which he ascended by sitting on each in turn and pulling himself up to the next. He was going slow, but felt that things were moving fast. Certain things, that was. Well, life was like that. You had to catch it. Mike flexed his fingers, then touched them to his face to feel the dopey grin stretching it.

From upstairs, Micky called his name, his voice more pathetic than seductive now, and Mike snorted.

Yeah, he was ready to seize whatever life brought. Brought the four of them…or any combination thereof.


	3. Midsummer, 1965 part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the well-travelled 70mtt for her great ideas!

_Listen for name but don’t step forward until indicated. Approach but stop at mark. Bow but only from neck. Take item but don’t touch hands. Return to place but don’t turn your back._ Mike rattled through it once more. “Hey, guys—”

“_We know!_” came three voices.

Ah. He hadn’t realized he’d been speaking out loud. “Okay. I just thought a little more prac—”

“We’ve _been_ practicing since the ambassador from the embassy came to tell us. Well, once we came out of hiding,” Davy clarified, grabbing at the roof handle as the car bumped. “If diplomats will go about looking like they work for a utilities company and have come to cut you off, they’ve only got themselves to blame when no one’s home.”

“And not just practicing in the pad or on the beach or at Pop’s. We were doing it on the way to the airport _and_ on the plane, man! We don’t have to do it here, now!” Micky protested, indicating the black limo with its flags fluttering on the front and its spacious seats cushioning them here in the back. “And not just because I refuse to stand in for the princess anymore.”

“_Queen!_” Mike pounced. “See?”

“Yeah, I do, and it’s pretty.” Micky’s voice came distantly as he stuck his head then most of his upper body out of the window.

Mike made a grab for the back of his waistband—these cobbles were uneven and Micky’s cine camera borrowed.

“It’ll be fine, Mike.” Peter threw him a smile. “_Bene. Bien. Gut,_ even.”

“Huh?”

“Everything’s trilingual here.” He pointed at a sign they drove past. “And there’s a local dialect that’s a language too. Interesting, right?”

“Yeahhh?” Mike tried to calm down and not think of the Monkees as ambassadors for their country, representatives of the whole of America, because, _oh God_. “Take over here?” _While I rub my churning stomach?_

Peter reached a hand up to Micky’s back, and Mike, noting that Peter’s touch was more of a stroke, a soothing reminder of his presence rather than a restraining clutch at Micky’s jacket, bit his lip but determined to say nothing. “I just think it’d be better if the actual ambassador was with us.” _Safer. Less risk of an international incident. Of Interpol. Less need for heartburn tablets. Do they even have Tums here?_

Davy chortled. “If you wanted to travel with that embassy bloke, we shouldn’t’ve changed our first-class tickets for cheaper ones! Although, it’s a nice little earner, this being honoured is! Hey, if we could’ve made the coronation too, we’d’ve cleaned up! Could’ve had a right good holiday with that cash.”

“Davy, you live at the damn beach! It’s like being on vaycay every day,” Mike felt obliged to point out.

“A skiing holiday then.” Davy was stubborn. “They do that here.”

Mike believed it, with all the mountains they’d glimpsed from the plane, the mountains they’d seen ringing the capital city, this walled city they’d passed into, with…its…palace… “It’s sort of big,” he commented, staring at the building that grew larger the nearer they approached, ashamed of how small his voice had gone.

Davy shrugged. “And here I thought you were a Texan. You know—” He slipped into a terrible pastiche: “Wha, back home we done gotten ourselves outhouses bigger’n this! But seriously, I’ve seen larger. Haven’t you, Peter?”

“Oh yes.” Peter stuck his head out of the window, making Micky laugh as it brushed against and ticked his ribs. “I bet the winter schloss is, and the summer lake castle too. This is ceremonial.”

Ceremonial enough that they were being driven to the back. Ceremonial enough that they were being met by an angry—

“Chamberlain,” Peter supplied, stepping out of the limo to stand next to Mike.

—almost jumping up and down at their lateness. One who didn’t listen to Mike’s attempt at explaining that they’d had to catch a different plane. One who foisted them off on a footman, shrieking after them that they had hardly any time to change and—

“What _change_? These are our best _suits_, man!” Mike yelled back, then wished he hadn’t when several uniformed servants eyed them with looks of pity.

“Davy, you got any of those cookies left they gave us on the plane?” Micky asked, looking up and down the tunnel-like stone-floor corridors they were being led along.

“You hungry again?” Davy patted his pockets.

“No. I wanna drop crumbs so we can find our find back through this maze.” Micky slapped the wall of a sharp turn.

“No need. I’m on it.” Mike showed them the stick of chalk with which he was marking the walls with small arrows. He was taking no chances. They went up a floor and into what seemed an isolated wing where the footman stopped and they all walked into him. “Guessing we’re here. Well, by the size of this huge door, it must be an enormous, well-furnished suite with all amenities—”

“Or a bare, medieval-looking room…with one big bed.” Micky revolved slowly in the middle of the floor and dropped his case.

Mike moved it out of the way, looking up as Davy called, “Not so! There’s another identical room with another bed through this bathroom!”

“Four poster,” Peter commented.

“Even four hundred posters wouldn’t brighten this dump up.” Micky ran his hand over the top of a massive chest of drawers. “So, how we gonna decide who sleeps where? Choose fingers?”

“No time.” Mike checked his watch. The Throne Room would probably be a walk away. “Let’s just stick to the usual arrangement.” He dropped his case onto the bed and kicked Micky’s close, too.

“A regular home from home,” Micky said, waving as Peter and Davy hefted their cases through into the other room. “Same musty smell, too. Hey, if the john don’t flush, we’ll know who owns the place, right?”

“Oh, come on! This is an honor—”

“’s ceremony,” Mike quipped.

“And some sorta garden gala after—that’s rich-swank for party, guys!” Mike said, with more enthusiasm than he felt. “We should be proud! We should feel thrilled! We should—”

“Get that bloody footman a glass of water?” Rejoining them, Davy winced at the coughing coming from outside the door.

“No no. I might not be trilingual”—Mike ducked the pillow Peter swiped at him—“or even bilingual—”

“Yeah, you are. You’re bi—”

“_Bi_, is he? Do tell!” Grinning, Davy nudged Micky for more.

“He speaks Texan _and_ Californian now. You said ‘bail’ the other day and not in a court-house context, Mike,” Micky crowed.

“Thank you? But the language I _do_ speak is pissed-off. And that?” Mike notched his chin in the direction of the fake-coughing. “That’s the universal noise for ‘get your asses moving’.” With that, Mike ushered them to the door and, after they’d all performed a quick straightening of their suits and combing of their hair, let them out.

“Erm, Mike?” Micky shot him a glance a few corridors later. “You know how you made all those chalk marks, to show the way from the door to our room? Well, we’re going to a different part of the palace now, so those marks won’t be no good.”

“Reason I brought a whole box of chalk.” Mike tapped his nose, then wished he hadn’t when the chalk dust made him sneeze. “Just everyone remember this route’s purple,” he wheezed, his eyes streaming.

“Appropriate, for the Throne Room.”

Mike eyed Peter, but let the remark lie. He suspected Peter had reasons for coming out with the off-beat remarks he made. Only here, now, wasn’t the place to go into that one. They picked up another footman on their journey, and Peter looked him up and down.

“Michael.” He bent close to whisper. “See his tiepin? Did you notice it’s the same gemstone as the chamberlain’s cufflinks?”

“Can’t say as I did. But well, I guess clothes, fashion, or whatever, it’s all a bit more elegant here? More formal? Not all ratty tennis shoes and odd socks.”

“No, I meant…” Peter subsided.

“Hey, one more time?” Mike asked the others. “From the top. I’ll start.” He cleared his throat. “You listen, but don’t step.” He clicked his fingers and pointed at Peter to continue the instructions.

‘“The way you’re movin’,’” Peter crooned.

‘“Hey, you look so fine,’” Davy added, making Mike spin from Peter to him in confusion.

‘“You been doin’ the Shotgun,’” Micky sang, lifting his arms in the dance move.

‘“Let me see you do the Twine,’” the three of them harmonized, all doing the chicken pecking up grain dance move.

“Guys, that’s not it! Approach, then stop!” Mike yelped, demonstrating, halting and making the footman bringing up the rear bang into him.

‘“Let’s see the Watusi,”’ Davy sang, his feet planted and his upper body and shoulders rolling.

‘“And the Action too.’” Peter stamped his feet and windmilled his arms.

‘“Now hang on, baby,’” Micky cautioned, wagging a finger.

‘“I’ll do the Sloopy with you,”’ came from all three of them, in a chorus line.

“Guys…” Mike pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. Just…not the Pony, okay? Anything but that.” He tried to grin and got them all walking again.

“Mikey, Mikey, Mikey.” Micky looped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “Ya gotta relax, babe. In fact, it’s my vacation mission.” He ignored Davy’s, “That’s a thing?” “My present to you, helping you relax,” Micky promised.

“Thanks?” Mike narrowed his eyes at them. “How come you’re all so laid back about this, anyway?”

“Duty free drinks.” Davy mimed tipping some back. “The drinks were free on the plane, before this duty! While you were pacing up and down throwing black coffee down your throat and barely stopping yourself breaking into the cockpit and taking over from the pilot, we were p—”

“Pissing about.” Mike sighed.

“Pacing ourselves,” Peter corrected.

“Yeah. I’m sorry.” Mike meant it. “I’m just a little wound up.”

“You know what I do to relax when I’m uptight?” Davy asked. “I go into the bathroom, peel my clothes off and have a good old long, slow—”

“Oh God.” Mike covered his ears. Hoped the footmen didn’t speak English. Well, not that kind of English at least.

“_Shower,_” Davy finished, his grin wicked.

“You do? Huh. I go in there and rub one out,” Micky said. “Well, it’s where all the girlie magazines are, right? So it’s only natural.”

Before Mike could argue with that, Peter chipped in. “Be careful not to develop a learned response to that stimulus, then, Micky. Else imagine, you’re walking past a newsstand and see the rows of magazines hanging there and automatically start to—”

“Or you’re in someone else’s bathroom,” Davy added, “and automatically start to—”

“Here we are!” Mike shouted. He’d never been so glad to see a Throne Room in his life. “Apologies,” he said, to the footmen and chamberlain, ushering them in. “I’m a little on edge. I never got given keys to a city before. I don’t know _anyone_ who got given keys to a city. In fact, I bet no one in any city I lived in got keys to a city. What do you even do with keys to a city? A city in a country you don’t even live in? Because all I can think of is, melt ’em down and sell the metal?”

The chamberlain’s icy glare told him he must’ve said all that out loud. The guy’s black stone cufflinks glinted when he indicated their places, amongst the smallish group of people waiting to be called forward here, in the opulent Throne Room, at the Kingdom of Harmonica Midsummer Honors Ceremony, at which they’d better not disgrace themselves. Which reminded Mike.

“Hold out your hands,” he muttered to the other three.

“We washed ’em. Honest,” Davy replied.

“No, look, you call her Your Royal Majesty the first time, right?” He jerked his chin at the dais. “Then Ma’am, which rhymes with hand, and not palm. I thought of something to help us remember…so hold out your hands…” He took out his ballpoint and drew small ticks on the backs of their hands and small crosses on the palms. “Perfect.”

“So you think making us look like members of some half-arsed secret society with an even more half-arsed initiation tattoo is perfect?” Davy gave in, just shaking his head instead. “Oh, talking of tattoos, did you know Micky’s got one?”

“What? No, he hasn’t.” Mike was sure of that. “We share a room and he’s always in the bathroom with the door open. I’d’ve seen it.”

“No, it’s in a place you’d never find. His brain!”

Mike had to laugh, as Davy had no doubt intended, uncaring of the snooty looks this attracted from the other honorees. And the proceedings weren’t stressful but boring, kinda, watching and listening to a bunch of people being honoured in three languages. The room might have been impressive, all gold and scarlet, high gilded ceilings and low crystal chandeliers, ivory statues and oil paintings and the people immaculately turned out in expensive clothes, jewels and most of ’em wearing sashes like beauty queens or mayors, but Mike grew tired of looking at it all. The fresh scents of the huge vases of flowers and the notes of classical music from the chamber orchestra started to wear on him, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the frantic signals of the US Ambassador to Harmonica who’d spotted them.

Bettina was easy on the eye, though. She stood small but upright, her blonde hair arranged in a huge puff style and her big blue eyes serious and solemn, just like her face, with all her freckles hidden by makeup. He hadn’t really noticed her full mouth and strong nose and brows before, but he understood she looked… dignified? More…_regal_, he supposed, was the word.

“And finally, our distinguished visitors from the USA. As you all know…” Her beautiful speaking included the entire court, the dignitaries, the audience and even the momentarily silent orchestra.

Mike caught the eye of one chick, a tall, slim blonde who looked him up and down…and stayed looking. Well, he was tall, he supposed. He took a lot of looking over. He shot her a wink, making her blush, before returning his attention to Bettina.

“When I was in California to discuss trade export, an attempt made on my life was thwarted by these men’s bravery and ingenuity, at great personal cost to them.”

“Yeah, I stood in mashed spuds. Ruined me shoes,” Davy muttered, then endured Mike’s elbow to his ribs with a grunt.

“My uncle, the Regent’s, vile treachery was unmasked and his faction brought down,” Bettina continued.

A ripple coursed through the room, eddying stronger in the court and ministers. Mike didn’t have much trouble decoding it: not everyone who didn’t want a woman on the throne had been caught. Had been silenced. Minds and interests hadn’t been changed by the removal of the head of the faction. He thought of what they’d learned, that Bettina’s uncle had wanted her married off to a stooge of his choosing so he could rule in all but name, as he had been since the death of her parents. The power in front of the throne, never mind behind it.

Bettina had refused, disagreeing with her uncle’s view that she was a weak, ignorant female who should just smile prettily at state functions but let a big strong man do the actual reigning…leading to Otto taking more drastic measures. Or attempting to.

People shifting in reaction to Bettina’s words made light gleam on the chamberlain’s cufflinks and that other another footman’s tiepin. Not their footman. Huh. A personal footman. Who’d have thought— The applause directed their way startled Mike, as did the orchestra breaking into the first few bars of their theme tune, as if in introduction. Oh God, it was them! Well, him.

_Listen. Step. Approach. Stop. Bow. Neck not waist. Don’t click heels—you are not Prussian. What in the world is Prussian, anyway? Should’ve asked Peter. He’d know. Take don’t touch. Retreat without—_ The soft light of laughter in Bettina’s eyes told him he’d said all that out loud too, complementing his actions in taking a huge golden key from the cushion her pretty lady-in-waiting handed her. He managed to back away without showing her his back, reflecting that they must have turned their backs on her in the pad, when they’d been hiding her, or in her embassy, after the ball. Huh.

Another piece of that shiny black jewelery glinting over yonder caught his eyes as he was repeating his instructions mantra for the fourth time, sending encouragement to Davy, the last of them to receive his honor and retake his place, oversized key clutched safely in a sweaty hand. Mike breathed a sigh of relief, hoping it was covered by the rather staccato-sounding version of _Take a Giant Step_ rendered by the chamber orchestra, or the applause, or the swells of conversation now there was a lull in the proceedings—too much to hope for that they’d ended.

“Michael.” Peter half-turned, drawing Mike aside. Mike kinda thought he was going to make some remark about Bettina’s brunette lady-in-waiting, just Peter’s type, but his voice was too serious. “That black gemstone…people are wearing? It’s onyx. With an _O_. _O_ as in Otto? They’re sympathizers, is my bet.”

Mike’s eye opened wide and he scanned the room, still pretending he hadn’t seen the ambassador. It didn’t mean those people were working against Bettina, not exactly, not actively, as in trying to topple her, but more…being little shits to her. “She should be on her guard. Hey, I bet that’s why we were dumped in the ass-end of the palace and gotta share rooms.”

“Should we tell her?”

Mike considered. “She must know what it means. She ain’t stupid. And it’s good— wearing their views on their sleeves, or their ties, out in the open means she knows who to keep at a distance, right? Nah. Let’s not mention the rooms. She’s got enough on her mind today.”

“What’s this?” Peter frowned at the dais, where Bettina was announcing a surprise.

“And so, we award another tribute to the brave Americans who fought so bravely for me: we make them honorary members of our Palace Guards!”

The soldiers who’d been stationed in the rooms’ corners all came together, to stand in formation. Seen as a group, their uniforms, white knee breeches and soft tunics, with black vertical stripes, looked—

“Like a packet of humbugs!” Davy breathed.

“I was going with a pack of convicts,” Micky replied.

“More like we are,” came Peter’s opinion as the small unit surrounded them and walked them back to the platform.

“Please kneel to be invested with the Order of the White Elephant prior to being created Captains,” Bettina called, indicating the cushion on the step.

“We ain’t practiced kneeling!” Mike was horrified to find himself saying.

“Mike?” cheeped Davy as the soldiers flocked him, strapping a dagger to his thigh. A huge bugle—for a small country, they sure liked things big—was slung to his side, a crossbow hung across his chest, a long sabre looped down his back and a long spiked halberd pressed into his hand.

“Arise, Captain Davy!” Bettina instructed, twice, then urged, with a gesture. She looked at them and shrugged.

“Davy, get up,” Mike translated.

“I can’t—I’m too weighed down!” he replied.

“Does accepting this mean we have to do military service here?” Peter inquired. “Because if so…”

Mike wondered if he could make himself faint, as a way out. He helped de-weapon Davy and they all thanked Bettina, especially when she tacitly decided to forego decking the rest of them out, just had their armaments and—_oh God_—uniforms carted off to their rooms. Mike tried to catch Peter’s eye but Mike stepped into his field of vision.

“Don’t even _think_ about trying to hide those from me,” he cautioned.

“I won’t,” Mike was forced to promise. The weapons could come in handy, he supposed, although perhaps not at the garden party starting beyond the French windows, that everyone was pouring out to. _Oh._ He shook his head at his own stupidity. With their luck, never say anything like that… The lithe beige-blonde from earlier winked at _him_ this time, before exiting. He wondered if the big fella she followed out was her father or her husband. Either would complicate matters.

“So, party?” he said, kinda curious about the chick. That beauty mark near her upper lip intrigued him.

“Oh, this is going to be stuffy,” Bettina explained. “Dignitaries, local worthies, meeting everyone, glad-handing… The festivities tonight will be more fun.”

“Like, a midsummer ball?” Micky asked, casting a sad look down at his best suit.

“Oh no. Old traditions. It’s the people’s celebration. St. John’s Night, you know? Bonfires, dancing, costumes…and we have lots here to choose from. So please go and enjoy yourselves and come back for that!”

“Sounds fun, huh, Davy? Davy?” Micky looked all around then at Mike and Peter, and they all made a quick, unspoken joint decision to ignore the few twinkling stars floating in the absent Mancunian’s wake. “I expect he’s out there waiting for you,” he told Bettina, crossing his fingers behind his back. Davy was supposed to be there as her escort to the celebrations, after all.

“Peter?” Mike asked, trying to see what was drawing his attention. “The piano?”

“It’s not just a piano! It’s a Bösendorfer Imperial Grande, isn’t it?” His tone suggesting this compared to the Holy Grail, Peter wrenched his gaze from the piano to Bettina.

“I think so. But I don’t know much about pianos. My instrument’s the harp. In fact, I promised to play with the Palace String Quintet, out there.” Bettina looked a little shy.

“_Harp?_”

Mike had never seen a person’s ears prick up, like a dog’s or a cat’s, but did now, Peter’s as terms such as _double-action pedal_, and the name _Sébastien Érard_ flew about.

“Would you like to pl… Oh. He’s gone.” Bettina stared out of the French windows after Peter.

“He gets like that around instruments,” Mike explained.

“He doesn’t usually leave scorch marks on the floor, though,” Micky added, blowing and fanning the air.

“And you two?” Bettina asked, after indicating that her lady-in-waiting should stop whatever she was doing half-hidden behind the curtain and follow Peter out into the garden, help him.

“Oooh, I wanna see the city. I promised Mom I’d take lots of photos—we got a family connection with Trery, the capital city, and a bit with the rest of Harmonica,” Micky declared, surprising Mike.

“Marvellous!” Bettina’s smile lit up the whole of her pretty face. “I’ll get you a car and chauffeur.” She motioned to her chamberlain.

Mike…didn’t like that idea. “No, that’s okay. Micky doesn’t need all that fuss,” he assured her.

“But I can’t drive here. I’m underage for here,” Micky whispered.

“That’s— I’ll go with you. I’ll drive you.” Mike stepped between Micky and the flunky. Better safe than sorry. He didn’t want Micky alone with any pro-Otto creeps. Otto had hated Micky for masterminding first Bettina’s escape, then their own, from him and his guard. _Just in case…_

“Mike, you’re to relax.” Bettina ran a hand down his arm and took his hand. “And to make sure, I’m making it a royal decree. Hear ye, hear ye! Before God and this congregation, Michael is ordered to take the afternoon off to relax and enjoy himself. Thus spake, it is…ordained.”

“You…don’t issue many proclamations, do you,” Mike replied, after a pause.

“That’s my first! But it stands.” Bettina pointed at him, her expression impish rather than imperial. “I was advised to, by Micky.”

Mike was touched. Micky had said more than once during their preparations for departure and on the plane and again here that Mike needed to relax. That he was worried about Mike overdoing things, getting sick with the stress. His father had— The least Mike could do was obey, put Micky’s mind at rest. “Well, once proclaimed, it is thus accepted, ma’am. To rhyme with hand,” he responded, grinning.

“Oh, man! Issue me one?” Micky begged. “That chicks who look at me—no, spend time with me, go crazy for—”

“Babe, chicks who spend with you _are_ crazy. Or, yeah, they soon _go_ crazy. Come on! Let’s sight-see!” Mike bowed, from the neck, not the waist, to Bettina, and ushered Micky away.

“Micky, we need that to help with sight-seeing!” he was insisting ten minutes later, back in their room, the chalk mark directions having worked.

“We don’t need no stinking phrasebook!” Micky insisted, holding it out of Mike’s reach. “All they do is say lame stuff like, ‘Please be so good as to tell me where I might find a reputable physician. Sadly, my wife’s maid has been quite overcome.’” He acted out the characters as he recited, costumes and all.

“No they don’t!” Mike retrieved it from the wastebasket. “They say useful stuff, like…‘I am sorry I have to leave you, but I must buy a hat before the milliner’s closes.’ Oh, okay, so that phrase wasn’t…” He flicked to another random page. “‘Sir, you must be very proud of your large hat.’ Ah.”

Micky slid the book from Mike’s hand. ‘“Which one of you has left his sword on the hat rack?’” he read. “Gotta say, I’m sensing a theme here. Was the book published by the Hatmakers Guild, trying to revive their trade after the knock it took from Hatless Jack, JFK? Even though they forced hats on him wherever he went?”

“They can’t all be about headgear.” Mike zipped his jeans.

“No… This says, ‘Is there anywhere a married man can go to see belly-dancing?’”

“See? That’s _kinda_ useful.” Mike took his book back. “And this one: ‘I am afraid of snakes—please keep the door closed.’ That might be handy. And this… ‘Can you direct me to a local café? I’m afraid an elephant stole the sandwiches I had prepared for my luncheon.’ See, while for most folks, that’d be bizarre, us, well, we might need it.”

“Try towards the end of the book,” Micky suggested, combing his hair.

Mike flicked through the pages. ‘“I need every pretty virgin in the district: a fierce dragon is terrorizing the village’? Mick, you wrote that one! It’s in ball point over the top of the print!” He tossed the phrasebook to Micky, giving in.

With a triumphant, ‘“The dragon has been caught; let the lewd dancing begin!”’ Micky chivvied Mike out of the room.

“Are you re-enacting the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears?” inquired Micky as a few minutes later, in the garage, where Mike refused car after car the mechanics and chauffeurs indicated. “Ooh! You’re holding out for the Rolls Royce!” He nodded in approval at the Silver Cloud gleaming at the back.

“No…” Rather, Mike had spotted the gleaming onyx tiepin of the head of the garage staff. He turned to their footman. “Which car is yours?” Oh damn. He needed the phrasebook. He gave a valiant mime of turning a steering wheel and beeping a horn. “Qual _vroom vroom parp parp_ avez-vouz, hombre?”

“That small Citroen over there, sir,” answered the footman in perfect English.

“Oh. Heh.” Mike rubbed the back of his neck, not meeting Micky’s eye. “Could we borrow it?” Once the surprised guy had acquiesced, Mike helped himself to a mirror on a pole and bent to check under the chassis. Brakes looked fine, the fuel line too. Still… “Could you start the engine for us, please? Fancy furrin cars…”

It turned over fine and neither the footman, nor anyone else in the garage, showed any signs of nervousness when it roared to life. Micky slid into the passenger seat. “Road trip!” he yelled. “C’mon, Mike!”

“Road trip!” Mike shouted back as he got in, letting the freedom and fun of a new place and the prospect of experiencing it with Micky, a person _made_ for all three things, bubble through him. He could have fun. He wasn’t some old square. Heavens to Betsy, a foxy chick had responded to his power wink with one of her own, for land’s sake.

“Road trip!” he called again, adding, “Gangway!” for good measure as he drove off through the small crowd. “Say, my good fellow, what say we stop for some sandwiches? See, an elephant stole mine right from me.”

“And gee, I need a hat,” Micky returned. “If only there was a milliner in the town! Well, I guess we’ll never know.”

His eyes crinkled and shone with amusement, making Mike smile in turn, and suddenly think how good-looking Micky was. Funny-looking, sure, but nice-looking with it. He laughed. “Oh, nothing,” he replied to Micky’s quizzical glance his way. “Just…looking forward to the afternoon.” _To spending time with you._

“Me too,” said Micky, his sly look making the answer cover…a multitude of sins.


	4. Midsummer, 1965 part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it's turned into a three parter! I'll try and write the concluding part asap as I'll have to take a break for a bit soon.

Mike gave an experimental roll of his shoulders, trying to assess how _relaxing_ felt. No, wasn’t as though a weight had dropped from his shoulders. Ah. Yes. More like from his stomach. Which felt…alkaline. Smooth. He sucked it in and let in out to test it, and a crinkle noise reminded him. “Hey, feel in my pocket, Micky?”

“Mike! I’d _gladly_ have bought you a drink first, but—”

“_Jeez,_ Mick!” Mike risked taking a hand from the wheel despite the narrow streets with their tight bends, to swat Micky’s burrowing hand away. He jerked the car straight again, raising a hand in apology at the loud _beep-de-beep_ of a driver on the other side of the small street. “We could have crashed, you loon! Back pocket, if you’d let me finish, and don’t even think—”

Too late. Micky purred as he fondled Mike’s ass in searching his back pocket.

“Mick—” Mike couldn’t think how to finish that. Or even what it was. A reprimand? A warning? A question?

“What’s…” Micky unfolded the sheets of paper he’d found. “Oh. Really?”

“Yeah!” Mike grabbed for the change in subject. Gabbled, even. “I picked ’em up at the airport, seeing as my wallet’d mysteriously vanished when I wanted to get a guide book… Just some tourist info stuff. Did you know the town hall square has a pillory and there’s an ossuary and—” 

He went to grab the back of Micky’s pants when Micky rose, but couldn’t stop him leaning out of the window and tossing his quickly made confetti to the wind. “Goddamn it, that’s littering, Micky! Do you know what they do to litterbugs here? No, and neither do I now you destroyed my tourism information, man!”

“Sorry.” Micky’s face said he was anything but.

Mike thickened his scowl. “Now I’ll never know what a pillory is.”

“_Or_ an ossuary.” Micky bounced in his seat, his intonation suggesting the two negatives made a positive.

“The cathedral has a groin vault,” Mike told him.

“That…might be worth a visit.”

Mike wondered if Micky knew what that was. He sure as sugar didn’t, but the name was funny. “So, town hall square?” He squinted at a road sign. Town this size, it’d be hard to miss the hall and main square.

“Nah. Keep going down. To the water.” Micky pointed ahead, then patted Mike’s knee, and left his hand there.

“Erm, Micky…” And of course, Mike couldn’t think how to begin. Where to begin. What it was he was unable to be beginning.

“Yes? Oh, sorry, man. I was just messing about…” Micky removed his hand, but his tone came nowhere near apology and, watching him in the mirror, Mike caught the sidelong glance Micky gave him and saw him biting his lip. He wasn’t surprised to hear a tiny, “I gotcha going, huh?”

“That’s not— A bit, yeah, but that’s not— There’s messing about and then there’s… Micky, you, well, dig guys?” Mike was amazed to hear himself ask.

“Sure! I dig you and Peter and Davy and—”

“Micky—”

“Nyles. He likes you. And you like him, right?”

Mike shrugged. He’d been over to their new neighbor’s house for a beer. Nyles was well-built and blond but— Ah, screw it. “You know what, how about we have this talk another day, babe?”

“Sure.”

“Or never,” Mike muttered. Some things didn’t need to be talked about. Oh, not because he was a prude, but more because he had no call to. No; not exactly that. No _need_ to. Some things just were. No; just flowed. Which reminded him: “We’re going to the beach?” The expanse of sand glowed yellow-brown through the windscreen.

“Uh-huh, a bit farther along. To the lido.”

Within a minute they’d stationed and Mike let the sounds and sights of their free afternoon in a new, unknown place, wash over him. He caught Micky’s grin and returned it, grooving on Micky’s easy enjoyment. “Thus it is decreed,” he murmured.

“Heard, ye, heard ye,” Micky batted back. “I gotcha for the afternoon. And after…”

Mike thought there might be more to that sentence, so scrambled after the suddenly speeded-up Micky, walking to the pool set into the rocks a little up from the beach. Shoeless, Micky walked all around the flat slabs of rock around it before settling on a spot. Mike breathed in the sea air. Sweeter and not as salty as back home, he decided. More colourful place, though, with that pastel wooden hut he guessed was a café just up a zigzagging path and the brightly painted houses dotted here and there on the small cliff. The biggest, in yellows and pale cream, occupied the top where it bent around the bay.

“Take my photo!” Micky demanded.

Mike obliged, taking another with Micky on the steps descending into the tank-like pool and another on the top diving board. He hoped Micky wasn’t going in, clothed. “Explain?” he invited.

“This is where my family began!” Micky announced, his voice booming from on high, turning more heads than his climbing had.

“_Harmonica? _I thought your mom was from Texas and your dad from Trieste?”

“You don’t understand.” Micky swung himself down, his drop and roll earning him applause. “_Grazie!_” He took a bow, then pointed at the big house on the cliff. “That little shack up there is the royal summer beach pad, from where the king would look through his telescope at the bevy of beauties parading for his attention, and come down here to the café for his elevenses and well…let’s just say he was invited to see what was on offer.”

“Please don’t say they offered him a roll with a little honey,” Mike begged.

“Wasn’t. Was gonna say ‘And I ain’t talking baked goods, mister. More like, _sun_baked goods. If you get my meaning?” Micky nudged him, jerking his head towards the bathing beauties.

“Yeah, okay. I get it. And _I_ say again, explain?” Mike shaded his eyes to see if this was a put-on.

“When Mom was a starlet at RKO, the studio brought them all here one summer at great expense and with a load of fanfare to shoot publicity shots and layouts for the annual calendar…and to try and capture the heart of King Siegfried. You know, how since Wallace Simpson captured a prince, people have paraded pretty, slim American women in front of foreign royalty? Hey, it worked: Prince Rainier III and Grace Kelly?”

“I guess. Siegfried marry one of them?”

“Not exactly. Oh, he did marry an American,” Micky continued before Mike could interrupt: Bettina’s mother had been from the States. “A tiny lady on secondment from the Smithsonian—the palace historian and archivist.”

“Like, a _librarian_?” Mike winced, glancing over the glamorous women lying on the rocks and on the sand.

“Yeah.” Micky giggled. “The studio head, Koerner, was furious. He gathered the starlets together, back on the lot, and yelled, ‘Twelve of you and not _one_ of you owns a pair of glasses or a twin set? You never heard of thick stockings with a darn in them? And would it have goddamn _killed_ you to pack at least _one_ tweed skirt between you?’”

“_Ooh._” Mike looked ahead at the café they seemed to be making for. “Still, Siegfried’s loss was your father’s gain, right?”

“Yeah, exactly. See, Mom was so angry at all that, that they weren’t really just shooting the studio’s publicity pics, that she took a break from the studio and acted in a play instead. And that’s where she met Dad!”

“Aww. So this place brought them together. Kinda.” Mike thought he got it.

“Yeah. It’s really a kick.” Micky’s face was one huge beam as he looked down at the lido and beach, perhaps seeing it as it through his mother’s eyes, as it had been twenty-so years ago, then indicated the coffee bar. “Mom hung out here too—take my picture at a table?”

Mike did, then slid a menu from its wooden holder on another table. “We need to eat. Not that we have any balloons…” The currency’s name still tickled him. “But Peter says everywhere in the world takes dollars.”

“Except the UK, Davy says,” Micky threw in. “They call it Micky Mouse money.”

“We ain’t in London, boy. You see men in derbys with rolled umbrellas? _Sor-ry_, bowler hats and brollies?” he added before Micky could and opened the menu. “No. So we can get some typical Harmonican cuisine, like, uh…_burgeurs und frites_?”

“_Ja, mit_ Coca-Cola,” Micky finished for him. He snapped the menu book closed. “No, we’re going to the market square. We can get some authentic local food there.”

“Like _hotte-dogues und chippes_?” Mike quipped, following Micky, as he guessed he’d be doing all afternoon. Well, it was what he’d signed up for. And yeah, it was fun.

And next stop was indeed the market square, and Mike got to sample free olives and figs and a slice of yellow fruit shaped like a star and—woah! a small but powerful ginger liqueur served in an edible chocolate cup—as they wended their way through the market stalls, through knots of people and around squawking chickens and bleating goats.

“Makes Beechwood seem very tame,” commented Mike. “Oh wait, it is.” The market wasn’t just food but had bright bolts of fabric festooning one row of stalls and handicrafts set out at another, all embroidered cotton and carved wood.

Micky stopped and Mike congratulated himself on not banging into him. He turned around to glare at the…sheep that’d bumped into him. It glared and baaaed. “What, you waiting for me to apologize to you for you bumping into me?” Mike yelped. “You’re kidding, right? You see a maple leaf sewn onto my clothes someplace? No, ’cause I ain’t Canadian, buddy.” He glared back, then felt stupid: the sheep probably didn’t understand English.

“Look at the wooden toys, Mike—those painted dolls, like a Swiss miss? Mom brought one back with her! She had it for years and all my sisters played with it. I think my baby sister bit its head off, in the end.”

Mike was torn between asking about that and resisting being pulled along by Micky. He wanted to steer Micky to the more esplanade-looking kiosks, where cooks seemed to be frying grated potato and cheese patties and serving them with more grated cheese on top, next to something small in shells. A strong smell of aniseed came wafting up from there too. Mike didn’t know if it was soup or dessert or liqueur and didn’t much care. Oh, desserts must be those stalls, smelling of burned sugar and—

“Look! There at the back of the square.”

“A giant tree. With little tree stumps all around it. Wait—it’s hollowed out at the bottom? And there’s a bar, or a kiosk, in there, and the stumps are stools?” He was right, he saw, as Micky dragged him there. “It looks familiar…” He walked around it, making a circle. “Oh, it’s in a movie? No, in a promo reel-thing, for the studio, that they play whenever it’s in the news. Yeah, they show, like, an aerial shot of the lot, then the head honchos in meetings, then the stars in costume and a few seconds of the camera going around here, with a pretty girl on each chair, right?”

“Right! And…”

“And where did your mom sit?” He thought he was getting it now.

“Here? She didn’t. She was up _there_.” Micky tilted back to look up. Up the tree.

“There? Where…you’re going.” He definitely got it now. Wow that was a helluva big tree. He had to lean right back to watch Micky Monkee-climb his way up and unwind what looked like vines from a massive thick branch. It was only when it fell free that Mike realized it was a rope swing with a wooden seat.

“There’s another one too!” Micky called.

“_Ai!_”

Mike moved from the hatch cut into the tree as the exclaiming proprietor clambered through. With difficulty: he was ancient, as gnarled and weathered as his tree, as if he and it were— Mike shook the fanciful thoughts away, then shrugged at the guy’s words. “English?” he asked.

“No climb!” The little walnut-like man said. “Only climb if want…”

Mike hoped, really hoped, the fella’s mime, involving an up-and-down gesture of one cupped hand over a sticking-up finger of the other, meant something less obscene than it did in the States.

“Climb for _heiraten_!” the old man said.

“To…get a hat? Man, this country! Micky, seems it’s, like, a hat tree?” That sounded… “Oh, I bet it’s those laurel crown things! They’re made from leaves, right? So this must be where you get them. The leaves. To make the hat-crown things.” Mike felt quite proud of his linguistic prowess and deduction. Exhausted by the effort too.

“It sure is a headgear-obsessed country,” came Micky’s comment from on high, where he was inching himself onto the freed swing’s wooden seat.

“Hang on, there’s more…” Mike frowned at the old guy miming two people standing up straight, then a third making the sign of the cross, then bringing his hands together, as if closing something rather than in prayer. Sighing at Mike’s incomprehension, the man pointed up the tree and pulled a vacant expression. Mike was about to ask if he was okay, hadn’t had a stroke or nothing, when the guy mimed getting an idea, or a vision, and being ecstatic about it, making a kissy face in his joy.

“This is the world’s worst game of charades ever,” came Mike’s comment.

“For _Mädchen_! _Filles_!” the man continued. “Birds!” he added, in a Cockney accent.

“_Americano_,” replied Mike, pointing at Micky, now swinging himself to and fro out over the square.

“_Americano _loco,” corrected the man.

“Can’t disagree with you there, buddy.” Micky’s shadow swung over Mike and a whoop of glee floated down. Glee Mike liked the sound and look of. “Well, no actually. I gotta disagree with the singular, because this is plural—crazy American_s_!”

He started climbing, not as fast or as effortlessly as Micky, who was after all part monkey, one of the reasons behind the band’s name. He ducked as Micky unwound the second swing for him and it almost hit him on the head. Mike thought he did okay with heights, in general, but this one was in particular. In very particular, with hard pavement below. _So don’t fall off_, he told himself, easing his way onto the hard wooden seat and grabbing tight at the ropes.

“If you fall, you’ll probably land in a lower branch and can just grab it,” Micky surmised. “Need a push?” He leaned to give one anyway, surprisingly gentle, and Mike caught the rhythm, working his legs to swing. “Isn’t it groovy?”

“Yeah.” It was. A trip, as Peter might say. They all messed around sometimes on the kiddy park at Zuma, if they were on that beach, but swinging backward and forward over soft sand didn’t compare to being suspended many feet up, from the limb of an ancient tree that creaked and bent with his motion, and whose leaves swished with him, accompanying him and making it timeless, but whose twigs tried to snag him, keeping him in the moment. It was…risky, he supposed, but seemed right, if that made any sense.

“Hey, I can see my palace from here!” Micky’s joke wasn’t that funny, but it cracked them both up. The view was a gas.

“In your house, isn’t there a photo of your mom in a tree—this tree?” Mike asked.

“Uh-huh. Take my picture?”

They managed a mid-air camera exchange and Mike clicked a shot, doubting he’d get much of Micky in the frame beyond a few curls and a snub nose. Well, that would be enough, he reasoned.

“There’s a tradition associated with this tree. Single women climb it and get married soon after,” Micky called, as he swung.

“_Oh!_” Mike replayed the old guy’s mimes with that knowledge in mind. Micky narrowed his eyes at him seeming to rub the thumb and forefinger of his right hand up and down the extended middle finger of his left, and Mike blushed at how lewd it could look. “No—” he started.

“Is that supposed to be an invitation? ’Cause from I dig, the tree’s supposed to get you your true love, not a quick f—”

“_Finger!_” Mike cried.

“Yeah, I was gonna say that.”

“They wear their wedding rings on a different finger here – it’s the only way the mime makes sense. Well, non-obscene sense.” Even though Mike wasn’t making any. “And you know, I’m wondering if chicks get proposals from guys watching from underneath?”

“Well, Mom’s photographer proposed to her and he was in the tree too. She said no.”

Mike was about to comment on the tree’s power when a shout come from below. “Hey! Free beer for crazy American!” Seemed the old guy had gotten a young translator.

“Just one?” Micky queried, clambering down enough to reach the guy climbing up and take the opened bottle of beer from him. “There’s two of us.”

“Get other when come down safe. _If _do.”

They did, after toasting each other and Micky’s mom and Harmonica and the beer-tree, and the kiosk owner kept his promise, which meant they got to drink another and do it all over again.

“We might have been in the magic marriage tree together, but it doesn’t mean we’re so much as going _steady_,” Micky warned Mike. “I gotta lotta living to do yet.”

“Mick, when have you ever been steady? Certainly not now,” Mike capped, bracing himself as Micky stumbled on the cobbles and into him. He could never hold his drink. “And don’t say stuff like that.”

Micky made a scoffing noise. “It’s not like we haven’t made out, Mike.”

“What?” Mike’s turn to stagger. “You mean…” He lowered his voice and took a shifty look around. “Me teaching you kissing?” He’d remembered, when he’d woken the next day, after the…adulterated brownie that had led to lowered inhibitions. “That was—”

“And the refresher sessions since?” Micky eyed him, scamp-headed and gleaming-eyed in the Harmonica sun.

“Further practice! That was further practice! You said you needed more pointers! That’s not—”

“Petting?” And the loon went into some bit, where he wrapped his arms around himself and turned, to look like someone was groping him. Smacking noises of kisses accompanied it.

Mike guffawed. “That supposed to be sexy?” he spluttered. “Because it’s…oh, Right. I get it. Making me relax, right? As was decreed?” He laughed again, and Micky joined in, un-petting himself.

Mindful of Micky having drunk on an empty stomach, Mike got them both bowls of soup at the next stop, the world’s narrowest, steepest street, where washing lines strung across it on high from the houses on either side made clothes dance in the breeze like bunting and where Micky squashed himself onto a windowsill—the starlets had posed on a series of them, in a row. Mike was just glad they weren’t attempting any trick photography, with Micky running from ledge to ledge and Mike supposed to get it all in one frame.

One house turned out to be an informal cottage-industry-type restaurant, with food handed out of the front window. It smelled good, and he tried to find out what was in the thick broth he purchased two bowls of.

“_Sopa da Piedra_?” He repeated back the name. “_Stone_…soup?” He lifted a spoonful and let it gloop back. “Stone as in…_pebbles_?”

“Well, it’s hardly gonna be as in the _Rolling_ Stones, Mikey,” came thickly from around the hunk of bread Micky had soaked most of his bowl-full up with and was stuffing into his mouth. Bread finished, he tipped the rest of his broth into his mouth to follow it, two-handed, and wandered off to play with a kindle of strange, tail-less kittens.

“And you’d better not try smuggling one of those back with you!” Mike called. He frisked Micky before letting him back in the car, just to make sure, ignoring Micky’s wriggles and suggestions as to places Mike should pat him down.

Mike eyed him. “You _really_ need to get laid, boy. And no, that was not and never will be an offer.”

Micky’s smile spread, filling out his squashed-in face. “_Challenge,_” he breathed, sliding into the car and managing to stick out his ass, unnecessarily, as he did so.

Well, if this was all Micky’s good deed for the day, getting Mike to relax and enjoy himself, it was mostly working. If a warm, vague liqueur-and-beer-assisted feeling of holiday…_possibilities_ could be said to be relaxing. And it kinda was. And enjoying himself? Yeah, he was. Even the crazier by the minute drive back to the palace, once they realized the time. Even the being met by the same irascible chamberlain, onyx jewelery glinting, who seemed personally affronted by their lateness and ordered them to follow him to the “secret room.”

“Secret? He gonna blindfold us?” Micky grabbed at Mike’s arm. “How you gonna make your chalk marks then?”

“Or even find my chalk,” Mike replied. “And no, don’t offer to feel in my pocket.”

Their footman, following behind them, started sniggering, which reminded Mike to toss him his car keys back. The guy seemed sympathetic… “Secret room?” Mike asked him, a little out of breath at being walked to a different wing, then marched up to a new floor. “What’s that all about, man?”

“It’s a translation, sir. Of _geheim_, secret and _Zimmer_, room,” the young guy explained.

“Ahh.” Mike tried to look less stupid than he felt, while Micky sniggered. “I’d stop that,” he advised as they were shown to a double door, wooden and old looking. “You don’t know what they got planned for us in this—”

“Giant walk-in wardrobe!” Micky cried as the doors were flung open to reveal the room’s contents.

“So _Geheimzimmer_ is wardrobe.” Mike felt surer of this than he had about his tree-deductions.

“Nice accent! And it’s more like a junk room,” called Peter, from over one side, almost buried in a heap of, God, _hats_.

“Yeah, back home, it’d be a plunder room.” Mike took in the racks of clothes and shelves holding accessories.

“Odds’n’sods ’ole, where I’m from,” Davy called, from where he was stroking the fur on a cloak.

“I think of it as the nowhere else-for-it room.” Bettina smiled, nodding at Licia, her maid, no; lady-in-waiting, to take down items. “_Salle des miscellanies_, my mother called it. The stuff goes back decades, so it serves as costumes!”

“Oh yeah?” She’d mentioned people dressing in costumes for the feast or celebration thing, later, Mike remembered. He examined an outfit. “What are you going as?”

“Bad Bette!” Bettina held up what looked like a long skirt with a split in it, and an off-the-shoulder top. “A famous ancestor. She was an awfully racy _fin de siècle_ mining heiress, fond of reading novels and debating ideas—imagine!—who married into the Von Hauptburg royal family here and kindly brought her father’s money with her.”

“Decent of her,” Mike agreed, moving clothes along the rack. “And her father.”

“But take a good look and maybe choose two outfits, one for the exchange?”

Mike hardly heard that, caught up as he was in examining the stuff. When he looked up, Davy was standing proud in ermine and gold, preening as a princeling, Licia brushing him down. “Figures,” Mike sighed, assuming Davy was some famous Harmonican ancestor too. “Peter, what…” He tried to work out what the black suit, vest, floor-length cloak, and soft hat with a curled feather could be. Whatever it was, it made his reddish-blond hair shine and his face look more tan.

“Oh!” Bettina clipped her hands. “You make a dashing university scholar! And you know, they still wear a version of this traditional student dress. It seems very you.” She selected an old-looking book for him to slot under his arm, and slid a white rose into his breast pocket, blushing a little as she did so.

“I guess you have a lot of interesting ancestors,” Peter remarked. “Including…that one?”

That was…Micky? It took a second to be sure, in the folded-over knee-high boots with the loose striped pants tucked into them, the white shirt cinched in by a black leather belt wrapped twice around his skinny waist, the red bandanna _and_ black and brown tricorn hat on his head, and the long braided coat hanging loose down his body finishing it all off. Mike hope so hard the shiny cutlass in his hand was a prop.

“You need a—”

“Wench?” Micky interrupted Bettina, waggling his eyebrows.

Her, “Pistol,” _almost_ drowned out Davy’s, “Cabin boy.”

“Santiago _O Corsario_,” Bettina explained.

“Corsair. Pirate,” Licia chipped in.

“A sailor with the Spanish Armada, he turned pirate and founded this kingdom. Look.” Bettina dug around for a portrait.

“Mike?” queried Peter, as Mike shrugged into a much plainer costume, black uniform tunic with shiny buttons, black pants with a red stripe and a short cloak off one shoulder. A sash, gloves and a cocked hat with a badge completed it.

“I don’t know what it is. I just…like the colors,” he said. And that it was practical, although he doubted he’d want to put a pistol in the holster.

“_Gendarme_. Sort of national guards.” Bettina straightened his sash for him.

Peter smiled, looking from himself the scholar to Davy the prince to Micky the swashbuckler and then Mike. “I see it now. That every disguise is a self-portrait.”

“What? I…”

“Come on!” Micky interrupted, pushing between them and slapping both their asses as he went. “Let’s get this midsummer party started!”


	5. Midsummer, 1965 part three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this is never-ending! I'll get the final bit up asap.

“_Micky!_” On the way down the palace steps, Mike grabbed for the stumbling drummer again, missing this time. “That’s the third time you’ve got ass over tip. Okay, so pirates have eye patches,” he said, before Micky could. _Again._ “But couldya make do with just one, maybe, and not the two, huh?”

Sprawled when he’d fallen, Micky grudgingly handed one over. He stood and resumed his descent of the stairs, grabbing onto Mike when he teetered at the bottom.

“_Damn_, Mick!” Mike glared. “If you won’t wear your glasses, at least wear the patch over your weakest eye, not the _strongest_!”

“Yeah, keep that up and you’ll have a scar for real, not just one drawn on in black pen, along with the stubble,” Davy informed him.

Micky swapped over the much-too-big eyepatch with a reluctant hand. “I am in _character_!” he complained.

“You _are_ a character. A _real_ character,” Mike muttered.

“Hey, I just realized you forgot to draw something on,” Davy told Micky.

“What?”

“You should’d’ve drawn yourself some chest hair while you had the chance!” Davy stamped his foot with a ta-da air.

“Says the boy prince with the body as smooth as a baby’s…rattle,” Mike finished, mindful of not just the palace head honchos and the American ambassador but Bettina and Licia, her chief lady-in-waiting, being in earshot.

Licia looked up from arranging Davy’s stole, to get him perfect for the photographers taking pictures of the palace group. “You need more face paint, Micky? I have the black makeup.”

Mike supposed she did, being a kitty cat in a tight black all-in-one, her tail draped over one arm, ears sticking out of her brown hair and a black nose and whiskers drawn on her face. Peter liked cats. Mike knew. He always stopped to pet any he saw along North Beechwood or the couple that lived somewhere in Beechwood’s small precinct of shops. And he liked petite brunettes. So maybe the scholar and the pussy cat could be friends, just as the fake costume prince and the real-life princess could be. The tall blonde from earlier crossed his mind. Maybe she’d be at this shindig, along with a friend for Micky…

The fake prince, Davy’s, “ooooh, of appreciation jerked Mike from his thoughts. “Oh, my.” An honest-to-goodness horse-drawn carriage pulled up with a clatter and several _harrruphs_ from the matching team of horses. “No one calling shotgun?” he asked faintly.

“Bags me not sit on the dickey,” Davy said. “The rumble seat,” he explained, when they all looked at him.

“There’s room for us all. This is one of the bigger carriages.” Bettina allowed a footman to help her in and settled her clothes.

“It kinda looks like a big baby perambulator,” Mike couldn’t help whispering, making Peter laugh.

“What, you’re expected uniformed nursemaids at the back, instead of footmen?” he asked.

“I don’t know what I’m expecting,” Mike admitted. “Except probably Davy to leap on the back of one of the horses and ride it.”

But he didn’t and they were off, Bettina explaining it was traditional, that the people liked to see the coach parading through the town, and expected it, to start the midsummer celebrations off. Mike twisted to look back at the palace as they descended the hill. Huh, not so big now.

“I’m just sorry we couldn’t all fit in one of the really grand glass coaches,” Bettina apologized.

“Aww, just think, Davy, that costume and all this coulda been real, if you’d played your cards right,” Micky muttered in a tone of mock-sorrow.

Davy elbowed him, making him squeal in real pain. “Do I have to remind you I’ve never lost a hand of cards yet?” he replied.

“Cool it, you two. Remember where you are,” Mike warned, stretching his frown between the pair of them. He was very aware of where he was, in a not-that-modern-sprung vehicle, riding over cobbles. He shifted in his seat.

“Sorry, Mike. You doing okay there, babe?” Micky asked.

Mike shrugged. He could have done without the bumps. The jolting was uncomfortable.

“Give it a minute.” Micky leaned in to speak softly. “It gets…better, especially on the twisty streets. You get…into it.”

About to ask him what he meant, Mike…got into it. The now-bouncing was kinda stimulating. Even a little arousing. He wondered how much of the smile on Micky’s face was due to that and how much a result of the evening in general, one in which he was a feted guest, being conveyed to a party thrown by a royal for the most illustrious in the land.

Put like that, Mike couldn’t not grin too. And hope none of the Monkees had a woodie that showed up in any photos of the event. Their gray band uniform pants, the ones that were a little too tight where it…counted, were bad enough and had gotten them noticed in the local clubs. Which made them good enough, really. They were—

“A _boat_?” Mike looked, but it was still there, on the water they’d reached. “A _boat_?” When everyone from Bettina down to the lowliest peasant in the crowd on the dock turned to look at him, he offered a sickly grin. “I don’t do that well in boats. Even a great big wooden two-deck pleasure cruiser, like this, on a lake, like this.”

“Oh, we can get you something for your stomach,” Bettina assured him.

“Yeah, like a bucket,” Davy quipped, then scowled when Mike’s foot came down on the back of his cloak, jerking him as he walked, which rumpled his cloak and knocked his crown off. Licia caught it and attended to him.

“This is real nice!” Micky cried, conducting the brass band playing on the dock for a few beats then scampering aboard.

Mike guessed he must have smelled food and, sure enough, when he and the rest of the honorees from the ceremony earlier, plus some local dignitaries got aboard, there was a long table in one part of the covered deck, groaning under the weight of various dishes of food. It reminded him of the spread laid out at the Harmonican embassy the night of Bettina’s eighteenth birthday party. Micky wasn’t there, helping himself, and Mike closed his eyes a minute later at the boom of a cannon from the back of the boat.

“It’s okay.” Peter nudged him. “It’s official. Not Micky. It means we’re underway. And brace yourself—seems there’s a lot more cannon fire on the voyage.”

“Well, that’s fine, as long as no enemy ship returns it.” He recoiled from Micky, rushing in and up to them, laughing like a loon.

“Hey guys, if you want me, I’ll be hanging out back there, on the…poop deck!” he spluttered, and vanished, still guffawing.

Mike pinched the bridge of his nose. “Peter, maybe go after him and tell him it’s just a name? It is, right? Not an actual deck for—”

“It’s just the name. From the French _poupe_, for stern,” Peter assured him, taking off. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t find out the front of the boat is called the head, and _that_ was traditionally where sailors relieved themselves.”

Mike was glad of the respite and clutched at a window ledge. He didn’t look out. Good that there were no fancy speeches or ceremonies now, just a happy group chattering and laughing on the open top deck, at the back and front of the boat—he refused to call them by their toilet names—and along its sides, enjoying the evening cruise.

His stomach felt a little better, he told it, sternly. And the trip wasn’t too choppy—the cruiser was hugging the shore, its pace leisurely. Now it slowed almost to a stop, and _boom_, loosed another cannon shot. Was he imagining it or did a second shot come from the shore? Maybe just an echo, rather than someone shooting back? He forced himself to the window to take a peep, when a tap on his shoulder had him turning around.

“For you.” The woman held out a drink. He hadn’t seen her on the palace steps, so she must be a party guest, one wearing a blue dress with puffed-out skirts that showed off her legs, and laced bodice top, that showed off her…top. Her blonde hair was parted into two fat braids and the exaggerated bright pink circles and thick brown eyelashes drawn on her cheeks and around her eyes turned her pretty face into a painted toy’s.

“For me? It’s…”

“_Ponche._”

“Punch?” Mike asked, sniffing the fruit aroma wafting on the fumes the warmed drink emited.

“_Punch?_” The woman looked puzzled, and curled one hand into a fist that she swung upward.

Mike laughed, more when he realized her costume was that of one of those Swiss-looking dolls he and Micky had seen in the market earlier.

“_Ponche,_” she repeated. “Spirits and aromatic herbs. It cures all, from headaches to seasickness. I heard you needed something.” When he took the glass but didn’t drink, she tutted at herself. “Of course. Stupid of me. Your footman is not with you.”

He wasn’t, but Mike didn’t get the connection.

“We can call him? But it’s okay. See?” The doll-woman took the glass back and drank a little herself, then gave it to him again. “See? Have no fear. I support the Queen. Most women do. And my family is loyal to the crown, not any usurper.”

What? She thought— “I wasn’t…” Mike gave up on speech and lifted the glass. Brandy, he guessed. With fruit and spices, he added to his guess, as he knocked it back. “Thanks,” he said, licking his lips. “Oh, I saw you earlier!” He recognized her beauty spot. “I’m Mike.”

“I’m Liesl. Congratulations on your honor. Are you four really brothers, like Her Royal Majesty said?”

Mike hadn’t understood the bits of the speech that weren’t in English. “Kind of. Not blood. Well, there’s been plenty of that. Soul brothers? Is that right? Brothers in our hearts. And minds.” The drink might have loosened his tongue, but it wasn’t helping it make sense. His English was sounding weaker than Liesl’s, and it was probably her fifth language.

“And you are a music group?” she asked, her dark blue eyes on his. Tall, she didn’t have far to look up. Kinda novel.

“Yeah. I sing and play guitar.”

“Oh, I wish you’d played at the garden party. I love American rock music. Will you play later?”

“I don’t think there’s any plan for us to.” He looked over at the string quartet scraping politely in one corner. Quintet? Sextet? There seemed a good few musicians. He hoped it wasn’t a trio and that he was seeing double. People were filling the room, passing close to them, so he invited the woman to sit, taking a seat near her. It gave him a nice view of the laced-together bodice of her dress, which strained nicely as she breathed out, and the white blouse under it, which had a real nice low scoop to it.

“You got an honor at the ceremony?” he asked her.

“No. My brother did. The tall man I was with? He’s the official comptroller.”

“Controller? Like…in air traffic?” Mike stuck out his arms and moved one, then the other, up and down, making a _whee-umm_ noise, then wishing he hadn’t when people stared.

“_Comp_troller. Auditing and monitoring?” Yep, better English than him. She leaned in, to whisper, and give Mike a better view down that obliging blouse. “I made him take me. I wanted to see the court and all the…how do you say…beautiful people.” She winked again.

“Gettin’ warm in here,” Mike said, to excuse his blush at her words and hot-eyed gaze.

“So come out!” Liesl stood and took his hand. “We’re slowing—let’s see what they give at this stop?”

“Huh?” He let her lead him to the upper deck, to stand and see and feel the boat slowing. Liesl warned him when the cannon was about to fire, and that there’d be an answering gunshot or a flare from the highest point of the village they’d stopped to greet. She explained a bonfire would be lit there, then, to start _their_ celebrations, and that a representative would meet the boat at the lakeside with some local speciality of the village, to speed them on their way.

“Phew!” Mike pulled back from where he’d been leaning low, to see. “I think it’s cheese? Pretty ripe one, too. Wouldn’t like to make grilled cheese sandwiches from that. Stink the pad out even worse than it usually is.”

Liesl laughed, making her beauty spot dance, drawing his eyes to it. “I understand. I grew up with three brothers.” She looked around at a shout from near the ladder and waved. “And the one I forced to bring me is calling. I have to go. Oh, the _ponche_ is curing you? I’ll send more!” And with a squeeze of his hand that he hadn’t realized she was still holding, she made her way to the steps to the lower deck. “_See you later?_” she mouthed, before vanishing down the ladder.

“Hope so,” Mike muttered, looking for something to grab on to now he was face-to-face with the water and the boat was moving, and making do with leaning against the big wooden square structure that stuck up on the deck. He took a cautious one-eyed peep at the water below and inhaled a blast of cannon-shot-tinged evening air. A polite cough had him opening his shut eye to see a crew member holding out a goblet of drink for him. More _ponche_. The guy looked pleased when Mike asked if he’d mind drinking first, and took a massive gulp.

“All right, all right!” Mike scowled and held out a hand. “Fork it over, buddy.”

Cracks and whizzes split the night and everyone oohed at the flashes and colors from some hill yonder. Seemed that village’s speciality was fireworks. A figure launched itself at the wooden structure Mike stood near and landed on its top. It didn’t stop there but climbed higher still, to more ooohs and gasps and applause.

“George Michael Dolenz, don’t you go _dare_ go climbing that mast with that cutlass between your teeth – you know we’ve only got basic dental in our medical plan!” Mike shouted. “Spit it out, now!” He moved back as the metal sword clattered to the deck at his feet. But maybe the difference in weight had upset Micky’s balance: he teetered. Oh, no, that’d be the mast wobbling, then bending, slowly but steadily, taking Micky with it until it arced over the water and he clung with his hands, his legs swinging wildly, before slipping off the end. The mast sprang back upright with a _boiiinnng_, and Micky landed in the water. Quite cleanly, with hardly a splash. Which was hardly the point.

“It’s all right.” Peter was at Mike’s side before he could leap into action. “I tied him to a rope.”

“You mean you tied a rope to him?”

“I guess?” Peter’s unconcerned vagueness made Mike wonder how much _he’d_ had to drink. He’d better go check on things.

Yep, Micky was clutching the rope that was tied to the back of the boat and went under his chest to finish in a loop around his waist.

“He’s fine—I’m good at knots,” Peter assured everyone who was looking and pointing and exclaiming.

“I lost my eyepatch!” Micky lamented.

“I got your spare,” shouted Mike.

“Lost my bandana too.”

“You still got your pants?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re good then.” Mike toasted him with his refilled _ponche_. “Enjoying yourself?”

“_Am I!_”

He was. Although Mike betted this crazy-loon version of water-skiing wasn’t anything Micky’s mother had done during her stay here. And it started a trend – a couple of brave spirits, ropes attached, jumped overboard to join Micky, to whoops and cheers. Mike laughed to see them copying one another.

“Like dancers in a club,” Peter finished his thought for him.

“What d’you call this crazy dance?” Mike wondered.

“What else? The Keel-Haul!” Davy replied, clapping a hand on both their shoulders.

Two stops—a bushed of bright blue fruit and a basket of embroidered handkerchiefs—later and Mike, leaning against the railing in the midst of a group of locals, was invited to pay a visit to a hooker. At least, a startled Mike thought that was what the elderly guy next to him, who been practicing his learned-long-ago English on him, had said. “Erm…” Mike demurred.

“Come!” the old guy urged. “Just for us men, _ja_?”

“_Ja!_ Men like it!” another of the group insisted, his handlebar mustache bobbing as he nodded.

“No, I’m…I’m good, thanks,” Mike replied.

“Make man of you!” a third boomed, making some weird sucking gesture with his thin lips that Mike really, _really_ hoped wasn’t what he thought, no _feared_, it was.

“No, I…” _Am getting swept along in the pack!_ The gang of guys bore Mike with them to the lower deck where they clustered around something making bubbling noises and which emitted fragrant fumes into the air. “Oh, it’s a _bong_?” he asked amazed, then had to fight to keep his balance when Peter shoved him aside to muscle through the group to drop to a cross-legged sit and take the end of the water pipe all in one smooth blink of an eye.

“I think shisha? Like in Germany?” Peter asked, but didn’t wait for answer before inhaling a lungfull of smoke and not looking as if he’d care if the answer was no. Or yes. He passed the pipe bit of the Oriental-looking deep blue and brass contraption to—

“_Davy?_” Mike yelped.

“Oh, we do this in Manchester.” Davy inhaled, closed-eyed, his motions practiced.

“Really?” Mike asked.

“Well, in some parts of Manchester.” Davy looked shifty.

A cheer went up. For sunset, Mike understood, from the chatter, not…anything else, he didn’t think, trying not to choke on the smoke he’d just inhaled. Who had knocked his legs from under him, pulled him into the circle and stuck the pipe in his mouth? Peter’s face bore a suspiciously too-innocent expression.

After that, things became a series of separate scenes that Mike faded into and out of, like in a movie, with titles, to aid comprehension. _Music_, read the first title card, dissolving to a scene on the open top deck, Peter playing some round, fat acoustic guitar, which had two groups of six strings and a weird peacock-fan machine head tuning system on its headstock. Bettina was playing too, a small triangular harp she held in her lap, and she and Peter were riffing off each other, copying each other’s plucking with thumbs and index fingers. Her face shone at each cheer from the audience and she laughed in delight when Davy took up a square tambourine, and everyone whistled when Mike found himself joining them, shaking the maracas he somehow held, two in each hand.

“We should do this on stage!” Davy whooped.

“I think Bettina’s usually too busy ruling, what with being queen and all?” Mike replied, shifting as Liesl looked at him and licked her lips.

_To the fire_, described the next scene, the boat having completed its circuit of the lake and arrived back where it started, for them to transfer into the waiting donkey carts to _clip-clop_ to a big square in the town. There, a huge fire burned, music played, and more drinks and supper stood ready. Mike, who’d been jammed in next to Liesl in their cart and enjoying the press of her long, slim body against his, lost her in the dark and bright of the fire, where—

_Everyone looks different._ Mike revolved in a slow circle, frowning at the people he’d been socializing with, soldiers, sailors, wolves, sheiks, gangsters, scarecrows…all of whom had changed?

“Mike?” A hand tapped him on the shoulder and a tall woman in flowing brown skirts with a beige sort of overskirt or apron, a black leather bodice over a beige off-the-shoulder blouse stood there. Her black curls danced and she secured a neckerchief over her head, tying it at the back under her hair.

“_Liesl?_” Mike stroked a thumb over her beauty spot.

“Do you like my exchange costume?” She twirled in her lace-up brown ankle boots for him.

“You’re…a tavern wh…worker?” Mike saved himself.

“Wench, yes! From the Long Keller, the oldest beer hall in Europe, in town.” She pointed, over the sparks of the bonfire. “They still wear this uniform. It’s such an easy costume – they sell them there, so lazy women go as Keller Mädchen! Another popular costume this year is the Queen!”

Mike saw Bettina, over there with Davy, dressed like herself, her hair in that puff style, wearing a long sea-green dress and pearls and white gloves, which he thought was clever. Hiding in plain sight.

“And you?”

“Oh, I don’t have another outfit,” he told her.

“Oh, that’s bad luck for the summer!” Liesl looked concerned. “Wait here. I’ll find you an exchange.”

Mike had just about marshalled his wits into saying if there was anyone he wanted to get out of their clothes, it was her and…not some six-foot guy she dragged up to him, but was tugged to a small canvas hut, to peel off and emerge in tight black knee boots and tight white pants, a red tail coat and shiny black top hat and…whip…

_Huh?_ this title card read.

“Oh, you make a dashing ringmaster! Harmonica is famous for its winter circus.” Liesl waved an embroidered hanky in the air, then leaned into his space to whisper, “And you look good with a whip…”

_Dancing._ With a hard-on to some sort of local folklore music, to which Mike had no idea what to do, in a short chorus line with five others, coming and going, spinning and switching, whirling Liesl around by the waist when he bumped into her and winking and throwing kisses at her when he wasn’t with her. At a lull in the music, before softer music started playing, she fetched him a big drink, a big grin on her small face, the flames of the fire dancing in her eyes.

_The proposition._

“Liesl.” Mike pulled her into the shade of the changing hut, and hard to him. Things were winding down, the fire dying and people leaving, and he didn’t want to miss his chance. Sliding one hand up the nape of her neck and the other down the small of her back, letting both rest just so, he laid a kiss on her, nibbling at her bottom lip, then plunging his tongue inside, probing and tasting with possessive forcefulness. It was one of his guaranteed knee-weakeners.

“_Mein Gott!_” Liesl gasped and touched her lips.

“Yeah, darlin’. And plenty more where that came from.” He hoped. “Do you wanna come back to mine? My…room in the palace, I mean.” That sounded so weird.

“Kiss me again,” Liesl ordered, still breathless.

“Never refuse a lady,” Mike quipped, tightening his arms around her, so her breasts were pressed against his chest. He opened her mouth with his lips, then took possession of it with his tongue, easing one of his long legs between hers so he rubbed his thigh against her through her clothes. Just for a second or two, until she took over, grinding on him. “So, that’s a yes?” he asked, when he pulled back.

“Yes! _Ja. Oui. __Sì!_” she squealed, fanning her face. Then she shot a look around. “But we can’t go together. It will look…fast. We should be careful. And my brother is here. Look, you take the next…” She pointed at the horse-drawn cart that was collecting people to wind its way around the city and drop them off.

“Shuttle.”

“Yes. And I’ll take the one after.”

“Okay. I’ll wait for you at the back of the palace.” Mike thought quickly. “But just in case we miss each other outside, go in the door near the garages, not the one near the kitchen, and then look for blue chalk marks on the wall. They’ll take you to my room.”

“You marked the way to your room?” Liesl stared. “That’s confident.”

Mike shrugged. “You’ll be able to get in the building?”

Her turn to shrug. “I can sweet-talk any guards.”

“Now that’s confident.” Mike grinned.

“So, later.” Liesl gave a squeeze to his hand.

“Soon,” Mike replied.

“You room,” she capped, sweeping off back to her brother and their party.


	6. Midsummer, 1965 part final

_The arrangement._

Though, it wasn’t exactly his room, he remembered. He’d have to tell—

“Micky.” Mike grabbed a pirate by the shoulder, and a teenage girl span around, her fist raised.

“Sorry!” Mike held up both hands. “Wrong corsair. Micky! Micky! _Micky!_” he shouted. The kid tended to appear when his name was said three times. Mike had never understood it.

“Will I do?” asked a familiar baritone.

“Yeah, Pe—” Mike stared at the tousled blond hair, the muscled bare chest, the board shorts on toned legs that ended in well-shaped feet in unlaced white tennis shoes and the unbuttoned blue surf plaid woollen shirt making a nice frame for it all. Peter looked like an ad for sun-kissed Southern California life. He did model, occasionally, for the new collections at that department store he and Micky loved, and though Mike had never seen Peter strutting his stuff in the seasonal clothes, he could sort of see it now.

“So, no board, but you got a…surf cat?” Mike pointed at the chick with Peter. The lady-in-waiting hadn’t changed? Oh, a bit: she sported a hood over her head, with a mask over the top bit of face, down to her nose. He lowered his voice. “Looks like you’re in here, Big Pete.” _Which makes things easier._ “When you see Mick, tell him to sleep in your bed tonight. Or wherever he chooses. But not my room, okay?”

Peter’s eyes opened wide and he nodded. Mike glimpsed Liesl again, and he winked and motioned with his head in hopefully the direction of the palace, and got a kiss and a nod back. “_Discretion,_” he mouthed, and got another nod before he leaped, or sort of fell upward, into the coach or carriage or cart—he’d stopped being able to distinguish. He leaped, or sort of fell downward, at the palace stop and walked all around the building to the back, where he hung around a bit for the arrival of the next shuttle.

Jeez, he had to take a leek, which meant sauntering among the buildings there for a dark corner. He heard some noise, talking and laughing, from the side of the building, he thought. It must be the next taxi-cart. He rushed back to the door, but Liesl wasn’t among the few people wandering home to the servants’ block. He must have missed her! He snatched up a candle from the shelf inside the door. There was one missing from the row—Liesl must have gone in.

It seemed a long way to his room and he should have been tired, but the spring in his step added speed to his pace. Inside the room, he almost tripped over a brown ankle boot, and despite the wrench to his knee, grinned. He locked the door behind him and advanced into the room, where he stumbled over another ankle boot, biting back a cuss at twisting his other knee. A brown skirt lay abandoned on the floor, a lighter-brown overskirt too. Looped around one of the bed’s four columns was a small beige blouse and in the bed…a long lean shape lay covered in a sheet, while a tangle of black curly hair was just visible on the pillow.

_The consummation._

Mike placed the candle on top of the chest of drawers and stripped right down to the whip, which he took with him to the bed, curling the long leather tail around one of the four-poster’s columns. Oh, and the hat, hooking it onto one of the pointy bits of the carved headboard. _What?_ You never knew. He slid in, under the sheet.

“Mmmm, you got me horny as all hell, ya sexy wench,” he husked, nuzzling into an exposed neck and sliding a hand over a soft, slim hip and through a thatch of springy hair and finding…_a penis_. _Afuckingpenis!_

That he didn’t scream was only because when he opened his mouth to do so, the body he was wrapped around pressed back into him, and Mike’s open, preparing-to-yell mouth filled with soft curly dark hair. Real hair, short, and not a synthetic shoulder-length wig.

“Mmmm, I’m horny as fuck too, now,” said an American accent. A California accent. An LA accent, just as a hand, slim but with calluses in the middle of its fingers and one on its palm from playing drums, pressed Mike’s hand closer. Micky’s hand. Micky’s voice, because…_Micky’s penis!_

_The Cymbal Crash of Reality._

Mike managed to turn his head into the pillow to muffle his scream. It came out as a weird, choked-off noise just as his body did some weird contortion shit, arching away from the foreign body in his bed.

“Mike? What’s wrong?” Micky turned to him, close and personal. “After you’ve been flirting with me all night?”

“_Noooo,_” Mike wheezed, on an inhalation.

“Well, okay, since I changed clothes.” Micky was leaning up on one elbow now. “All those sultry looks and pouting that juicy lower lip – I nearly came on the spot in the folk dance!”

“_Nooo-ooo,_” Mike rattled, still fighting to take breath into his lungs.

“Those power winks…”

“Mickkyyyy…”

“And that slutty mouthing, ‘Later’… What?”

Mike ignored the noise outside the door to gasp, “_Peter. _You didn’t speak to Peter…about this?” He indicated the bed.

“Peter— _Mich-ael!_” Micky sat, then did a double take at the long whip curled around the post. “When you play away, you sure play hard! Wow. I see now why the chalk—you don’t color outside the lines often, but when you do, you need a whole box of the stuff!” He fondled the stock whip’s handle with the fingers of one hand and smoothed the fingers of the other down its long braided-leather thong, his eyes on Mike’s.

“I-I thought you were Liesl. The chick from earlier,” Mike confessed, trying to shrink into the sheets.

“What chick?”

“She was dressed as a painted doll then as a tavern wench. We arranged…” Mike realized the tapping at the locked door had stopped. Ankle-booted footsteps stomped away. He wanted to cry.

“So you weren’t coming on to me?” Micky’s voice had shrunk more than Mike had been able to manage.

“Micky…” Mike sawed in a breath and just about got his internal organs, including his brain, working again. “No. I was not. I’m sorry. I mean, you’re sexy and all—”

“Just not as sexy as all hell? Funny.” Micky switched gears, his sadness dropping from him as he revved. “Because it sure seemed you thought so in the dance, when you smacked my ass and called me ‘a little tease who was gonna get what was comin’ to me as soon as you got me alone’. Oh, and you know something? I wasn’t the only one turned on.” He cast a pointed glance at Mike’s crotch. “You could’ve pounded nails with that thing!”

Oh Jesus, God and Mary in heaven. _The Dance._ A choppy black and white movie of it replayed for Mike, showing him the sly little touches he’d received from the tall ‘wench’ when ‘she’d’ been briefly behind him in the line in the half-dark, meaning he couldn’t see her, and the surreptitious rubs and presses her small ass had bestowed when she’d been in front of him, her back to him. Teases he’d repaid with quick but firm slaps at a tiny ass when _it_ had wiggled in front of him.

Oh, the movie might have been black and white, but it wasn’t silent. Along with the jerky folklore music, it had the gasps and bitten-off moans that Mike’s smacks to that sweet ass had occasioned. And now the questions attacked like bats: how many times had that been Micky? How far had Mike gone with him, albeit accidentally?

Mike wrapped his arms around his head, needing respite from the colony of winged black mammals swarming him. “Mick, please!”

“Oh, I will,” came in an affected purr. “Guar-an-_teed_.”

Mike manned up. No choice. He unwound his arms to stare at Micky. “Hey now. Don’t make me slap you.”

“Oh, you did that. And I think we’ve moved on from that.” Micky trailed his gaze down the length of the dangling whip, then caught sight of the hat. “Jesus, Mike! The whip and the hat? Add the shiny boots and the tight breeches and it’s what you see when you open the dictionary to look up ‘sex on long, lean Texan legs’.”

Mike jumped up, still sitting, and twisted and stretched to knock both hat and whip to the floor. “It was a mistake,” he insisted. “Mistaken identity. A mix-up. A mishap. I never meant… I’m sorry. Mick, I wouldn’t. You know that.”

“Not even away from home, like this? Holiday romance, summer fling, midsummer madness…”

Mike was relieved to see and hear Micky returning to something more like himself. “Let’s just get some sleep, huh, babe? Got another full day tomorrow.”

“Fine!” grumbled Micky, flouncing down in the bed and flinging himself onto his side, facing away from Mike.

That he was in the same position he’d been in when Mike had come in wasn’t lost on Mike. He slithered to lie flat too, carefully, keeping every bit of him to himself. He’d just about settled when he thought the silence was too thick, too expectant, and then the bed started shaking, caused by the short, repetitive motions coming from Micky’s side of it.

“Fuck’s sake, Mick, you’d better not be—”

“Shivering!” Micky curled in on himself. “I’m _cold_!”

“So go put something on.” Preferably not a cute dress.

“I’d have to get out to do that, and that’ll get me more cold!”

Silence might have been restored after that, but Mike knew it was a mere pause, and that Micky was gearing up—

“Warm me?”

_Called it._ “Warm you.”

“Yeah! Share your body heat with me? You’re always so _hot_.”

“Mick—”

“Then I’ll fall asleep.”

It was so tempting and Mike so wanted to believe… “Just hold you?”

“Uh-huh. Please.”

The _please_ got to him. He inched closer to Micky’s still-turned back and pulled Micky into his chest, wrapping a firm arm around his waist and keeping their lower halves firmly separated. Micky did feel cold. He positioned him under his chin. Micky’s sigh of contentment ruffled the covers. “You came back early,” Mike commented.

“Yeah. I was exhausted and cold. I never got warm after falling in the lake like that.”

Guilt oozed over Mike, dragging him down. He hadn’t checked on Micky after he’d been in the water, being too busy with his own plans to get some. He tightened his hold, trapping Micky’s arm under his, his hand over Micky’s. Micky’s skin grew less chilled.

“There you go. All warm now.”

“Uh-huh.”

Mike eased away, putting distance between them again. He’d barely relaxed, stretched out, when slight whimpers and stifled sniffles reached his ears. And then the movement—

He sighed. “Why is the bed shaking?”

“_I’m _shaking!” Micky replied. “I’m kinda unglued. Being back here, in this place, you know?”

“Back?” Mike turned to him.

“Yeah. We were in the north—it was independent then, but now it’s part of here—when I was a kid, ’cause of Dad’s series. _The Count of Monte Cristo_? Yeah, it was filmed in Ruritania. Such memories. They’re overwhelming.”

Mike vaguely recalled Micky telling Bettina his family had a connection with the capital and somewhere else in the country too. “That’s a real bummer, Mick.” He stretched his arm over to rest it on Micky.

“Yeah.” Micky back up a little, closer to him. “I really need to replace sad memories with happy ones, you know?” He wriggled. On Mike. And pulled his arm tighter

Mike exhaled. “You mean a happy ending. Mick, we’re cuddle buddies, not fuck buddies. No way.”

“Pleeease? I’ll shut up,” Micky wheedled, shamelessly.

“For how long?” Mike found himself asking, tired and cravenly dreaming of a silent, still, non-talking, non-moving Micky.

“Please, Mike.” Micky rubbed the length of his body against him. “I need to feel close to someone. You all bailed on me. Every one of you ditched me this evening.” He pulled Mike’s hand lower, closer to where it had been earlier.

“_Micky…_” Mike knew Micky could feel the second he gave in. Micky slotted his head under Mike’s, for Mike to nuzzle his neck. No. That wasn’t how this was gonna go. Micky didn’t get to call the shots. He didn’t manipulate Mike.

Pressing closer to Micky’s back, Mike tugged his hand free of Micky’s and slid it up Micky’s chest, to pinch a nipple. He ignored the puzzled, surprised, “_Owww_,” this occasioned. “We do this, we do it my way,” he rasped in Micky’s ear, forcing his other hand under Micky, to bring it around and squeeze his other nipple too.

“But—_owww_!”

“Give it a second. You’ll get into it.” Mike shamelessly volleyed Micky’s words of earlier back at him. Returned them with spin, even. He pinched harder, tormenting the tightened buds.

Micky gasped and writhed a little, before an “_Oh yeah,_” was breathed out.

Mike left one hand where it was, now scoring his thumbnail across the abraded flesh, and slipped the other down. “Let’s see what we got here,” he murmured.

“It’s a dick, Mi—_eeeep!_”

The noise was a response to Mike biting his neck and pinching his nipple again. “_Shhh,_” MIike whispered, exerting easy dominance. “Well, you can make noises, I guess. You will, anyway.”

Micky did, groaning as soon as Mike wrapped his hand around Micky’s cock, finding it as hot and hard and swollen and ridged as he’d expected. He traced a finger along the engorged veins that ran its length.

“You got a nice dick,” Mike commented, exploring the length with its upward curve toward Micky’s navel. “Push for me, babe.” He made a hard fist for Micky to work against, to expose the head of his cock for Mike. It was smooth and Micky whimpered when Mike caressed it with his thumb, then gasped when Mike probed the slit at the top with his fingernail. They both purred their appreciation when Mike encouraged precum to release, and spread it over the head, Micky bucking in Mike’s hand.

Mike started to work the head but met resistance. “You’re kinda tight,” he observed.

“I got a tight foreskin, don’t I? I always thought so.”

_Hence all the…exercise, with your girlie mags?_ Mike wondered, grinning into the back of Micky’s head where Micky couldn’t see him. He loosened his hold and brought his hand up to Micky’s mouth. “Spit,” he ordered.

Micky obeyed an order without question, for once, and Mike wrapped his wetted hand around Micky’s shaft, and began caressing it with light strokes.

“_Fuck_, Mike, that feels good.” Micky’s moan came like something from a flick at the Regent, or even the Vista.

“Yeah?” Mike liked the way Micky felt and moved, pushing his cock into Mike’s hand in time with his long, medium-hard strokes. They could do better— “Really fuck my fist, baby,” he husked, thickening his accent. He slid his other hand lower and tilted Micky enough to get at his balls, squeezing and fondling to feel them growing harder and tighter in his hand. “Oh, you like that. Like it dirty. I know you do, kid. Seen you with hickeys on your neck and scratches down your back. You like the chicks with long fingernails, huh? Like them getting freaky with you when you fuck them? And you like them on top, riding you.”

He’d caught a glimpse of it once, in their early days as roommates, when Micky had gotten lucky, and he’d had about-turned and crept away, luckily before either party had seen him. The image had stayed with him, though, including in his alone moments.

Micky groaned in response and Mike was suddenly belatedly glad the other room was unoccupied. Damn, the kid was loud. “You gonna come for me?” He tightened his fist and Micky drove through it faster, pumping hard, his voice one long moan, one hand curled around Mike’s and the other maintaining a desperate grip on the sheet under him.

“You feel good,” Mike crooned, and it took only seconds before Micky’s body began a tell-tale tightening and tensing. His cock hardened even more in Mike’s fist, then pulsed, hot and slick over their joined hands. Mike pumped, his grip hard, masterful, setting the pace, right down to the last spasms he milked from Micky, leaving him gasping and panting. His shakes were for real now, Mike noted, with a touch of smug.

“God!” Micky finally burst out. “I’m not usually that hair-trigger, I swear. Sorry. I’ll make it up to you.” He pressed backward, but Mike scooted over, grabbing something from the floor to wipe his hand on.

“No, you don’t have to.”

“So we’re buddies with benefits that only go one way?” Micky scoffed, shoving himself into Mike, to feel…nothing. No hardness…nothing. Mike had only just realized, and didn’t know what to think about it. “Great!” Micky yelped. “I can’t even stir your interest!” Seemed Micky did, though.

“No. No, Micky. It’s not you. It’s me.” Mike fought to keep his tone free of the relief that wanted to infuse it…and the embarrassment that sought to shimmer at its edges. “They gave me medicine-drink for the seasickness, and I had a fuck load of alcohol. That sometimes makes me…” He stopped at the rapt, calculating expression stealing over Micky’s face. “Don’t you tell anyone about this. _Any_ of this,” he added, right up in Micky’s space, darkening his tone.

Micky took the item of clothing from him to clean his hand and stomach then dropped flat and sprawled out. “Oh, I’m prepared to keep your secret safe…for a price. One which I think you’ll find…_very_ interesting,” he informed Mike.

“And don’t you so much as even think about keeping that wench costume, or trying this ever again,” Mike ordered. “Even if you do make a pretty chick.”

But Micky was asleep. Looking at him, Mike thought he might have dropped off as soon as he lay flat, that he’d fallen asleep and yet carried on talking. He did that. Never shut up. Weird cat. Mike settled down and pulled the Angeleno nutjob over, rolling him onto his side to spoon. Micky liked that. He invoked his right of roommate cuddle-buddy privileges at least once a month, more often during stormy weather. Probably a con job, but…

Mike wondered about Micky’s price. His terms. He’d better not try anything funny… Mike was almost asleep when he remembered something, something that had him reacting.

“Oww!” came Micky’s reaction’s to Mike lifting up the covers and administering a ringing slap to his defenseless bare ass. “_W’satfor?_”

“Your father’s TV series, _The Count of Monte Cristo_, was filmed in a studio in Culver City in LA, ya little faker,” Mike hissed in Micky’s ear.

“_Snoorrre_,” came from Micky, after a few seconds, as phony as Mike had just accused him of being.

Mike stifled a laugh and pulled Micky close again. Little brat was always up to something. Like being dressed as a chick. That was odd, even for him, though. He hadn’t been trying anything…funny, had he? Hadn’t been… Sleep’s tendrils were pulling at Mike. He stretched out, his legs kicking the beige overskirt that had served as a cleaning cloth for them both, so it hung over the edge.

Mike made a grab for it to throw it down, rather than wait for it to drop, and his fingers closed around something thin and cylindrical inside the pouch-pocket bit of it. A pen? Pencil? A pencil with a lid? Like the black makeup pencil Licia had been using earlier. Micky must’ve had it to refresh his pirate scars. He wouldn’t’ve needed it for anything else…like drawing a black beauty spot near his mouth, would he…because that, _that_ would mean…

Mike was thankfully asleep. Tomorrow was gonna be another day, and no doubt as crowded and crazy as they all were, and that none of them, him included, would have any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might pause this fic for a bit to write the first in a new Beechwood shorts series, just short PWPs as I'm missing writing Mike/Peter sex scenes!


	7. Late December 1965

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't blame me for Micky's shenanigans - they're all 70mtt's idea!

Four days into his temporary holiday season job of relief caretaker at the Camero Estate and Mike thought again, as he had every day, that whoever had decided to install a riding railroad in the grounds of the Holmby Hills property was a genius. No, give it its Sunday name—grand-scale model railway. What you called it, it was still a good idea, because what better way was there to haul the feed to the animals in the petting zoo than by using the ridable large-scale toy railway? And, as it enabled him to check over the grounds at the same time, it was a three in one. Or, at least, three tasks done in one. Hm. Maybe _he_ was the genius. He pulled the lever to sound the horn in celebration.

Mike toasted himself with the rest of his beer and slowed the train’s speed so he could twist and stow the empty bottle in the carriage behind him. He wouldn’t normally have had a drink so early in the day, but there’d been no milk for his cereal, so he’d improvised with another beverage from the ample stock that had been left for him. Perks of the job. Just as cereal with grape soda yesterday had been…interesting, beer with cornflakes today had been…different, and made him think he’d better try another bottle, on its own, _sans_ cereal, to see if that imported stuff went down as smooth and easy as it’d seemed to with the Kellogg’s mixer. _It did._

He belched, wondering if he’d be able to see his breath streaming in the air. Well, LA was colder than Texas, making the science experiment valid. And a failure—no beer-scented trail puffed to accompany the train, downgrading it from electric back to steam. Well, never mind. Mike switched tracks as he had to get up the gradient, taking it slow and easy and feeling mellow.

Was this how he would have lived, on his own? If he wasn’t sharing a house with and taking responsibility for the others? Maybe he wouldn’t have a house of his own and all the worries it brought; he would just take live-in jobs. If the accommodation was as fine as at this one, he might’ve. Okay, so he was in the guest house and not the staff chalets, but he’d peered in at them and they looked okay.

And the money was more than okay. Well, yeah, he was getting emergency, couldn’t-find-anyone-else-at-the-last-minute holiday rates. For which, yippee, because God knew they needed it. They’d just about caught up with rent and bills when it was time to go back to their families for the Christmas season, with all the expense that entailed. Davy’s trip cost the most—he was going the farthest and for the longest of them all, spending ten days in England. He wouldn’t be back until the second. Peter would only be back in LA in early January, planning to see the New Year in in New York after New England. Triple new. So much newness, as opposed to Mike, in good ol’ Texas, where he’d lasted a grand total of fifty-two hours, and was happy to be back in LA.

He missed the others, though, and could have done with some company. He felt a little exposed, sitting on a wooden seat in this open-air cabin that pulled the shiny red train, especially when it rounded the berm and went into the little copse of trees on the other side. It was kinda spooky there, and he always half-expected to glimpse someone waiting on the brow of the small hill or up in a tree and—

“SURPRISE!” yelled the flag-waving figure dropping from the tree to land in front of him on the track.

After, Mike was ashamed of just how-pitched and prolonged the scream he gave in response was, but now he was just glad he managed to slam on the lever and switch the train to the other track, then pull the brake and stop the vehicle. “Micky?” he yelled. “_Micky?_ _Fuck’s sake!_”

“What?” called Micky, all innocent-eyed, jumping onto the new track in front of the engine, still waving his flag on its stick.

“What’s with the uniform, for one thing?” Mike queried, when his heart stopped trying its best to break his ribs from the inside, pointing at Micky’s jacket with its shiny buttons, and his flat cap.

“I’m the conductor!” Micky produced a whistle too. “And why aren’t you in uniform, Nesmith? Call this proper railroad attire? What, December thirty is Dress Like Hugh Hefner Day?”

Mike looked down at his pajamas, robe and slippers. “No. This ain’t silk. And I don’t have a yachting cap.”

“Here. This should help.” Micky held out another dark blue uniform and hat, the peak of this one saying ENGINE DRIVER. “You gonna do this, do it properly. And you’ve been a naughty boy, opening a present early.”

“What?” Mike slipped off his robe and donned the outfit over his pjs. It was easiest to do that than argue with Micky, now sitting in the cabin and playing with the toggles and pulleys.

Micky pointed. “The boudoir look? It’s so obviously a parental birthday present that you brought back with you from Texas and that you opened as soon as you woke up today, despite the fact it’s not your birthday for another…ten…nine…”

“Micky…” Mike, sliding next to Micky, was exhausted already. No one back home was this high energy.

“Five…four…”

“So you came just to—”

“Two…one—HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Micky blew on a party horn and threw a handful of confetti over Mike, then hauled him in for a kiss. Mike managed to turn his head so it landed on his cheek, and wasn’t the smacker on his lips Micky seemed to have been intending.

“Well, thanks,” Mike said, meaning it. “So. Ya got bored with the family, huh? And what, you snuck back to the pad for a few days and got bored with Beechwood too?” He peered hard at Micky to read the expressions flitting across his face. “Not bored—you made it too hot to hold you. Oh, Jeez.” He’d tried, they all had, so that Micky wasn’t alone in the pad. In the neighborhood. The shifty look on Micky’s face had Mike fearful about what must have happened.

“I actually came to bring you your present.” Micky looked put-upon. “But I think you started early with birthday stuff other than opening presents. You had yourself a birthday drink, in fact.”

“I might have.” Mike started the engine and ignored the rattling of the empty beer bottle from the carriage behind. “It’s your fault. I never would’ve dreamed of puttin’ alcohol on cornflakes on my own, man!”

“_Mikey!_” Micky just managed to grab the metal handle on the outside of his seat and not be jerked out of the cab. He still looked delighted, though. “I—”

Mike held up a hand. “I realize I’m in for a day of Micky-shaped fun and foolery”—which he didn’t mind one bit—“but I got work to do first. I gotta—”

“_Petting Zoo!_” Micky hollered, spying the signpost and leaping from the moving train.

Resigned, Mike slowed and stopped, and hefted the feed into the barn where the animals were stabled for the winter, and checked they were all okay before turning them out into the paddock. Least with ’em all being big there was no risk of Micky making off with one, he reasoned. Well, little risk. Well, okay. Better frisk him just in case. Mike tried to disguise what he was doing.

“You copping a birthday feel?” Micky flexed a little. “That what you want for a present? ’Cause I gotta say, you in a uniform…well, you know what it does.”

“Just get in.” Mike shouldered him back into the cabin, getting in himself.

“A uniform, ordering me around _and_ manhandling me? Sure it ain’t _my_ birthday?” Micky purred.

“Micky…” Mike broke down in giggles, unable to be stern. “Hey, wanna swap hats, so you’re the driver?”

“Do I!” Micky switched their headgear, surged over Mike and slid into the driver’s seat under him, shoving Mike over so forcefully he almost shot out the side. “Oh, I nearly forgot. Happy Birthday.”

“You already said that.”

“And here’s your present.” Micky scowled at Mike for interrupting. “It’s from all four of us.”

“Four…?” Mike pointed a puzzled thumb at himself.

“Hey, Mr. Schneider went in on it too!” Micky informed him.

“Thanks! Gee…” Mike shook the wrapped bottle-shaped gift, listening to the liquid slosh about. “I wonder what it can be? Chivas Regal?” he exclaimed, pulling the paper off. “_Wow._”

“I know! Just like the Rat Pack drink!” Micky beamed. “So classy and so _regal_, baby!”

Mike laughed, thinking back to Micky saying that once before. “Thanks. I do like this. Haven’t had it for years.”

“You got a bottle when you were eighteen.” Micky nodded. “Peter said. You mentioned it once.”

_And he remembered?_ Mike blinked. The guy constantly surprised him. “Well, thanks, all four of you.” He went to ease the cork free with his teeth, only realizing when the cap was in his mouth that the bottle had been redesigned and now had a metal screw-top. “To absent friends,” Mike toasted, taking a hefty belt and spluttering a little.

“Good thing I’m driving,” Micky deadpanned, starting the train’s electric engine. “Can we take a tour, go right round the tracks? I wanna go over the bridge.”

“And the overpass,” Mike promised him. He felt with his foot for the transistor radio he’d tended to carry about with him, finding he needed music to drown out the silence. It tended to be a rare commodity in 1334 North Beechwood Drive, and he wasn’t used to it anymore. And he needed to listen to the local news just in case, what with Micky on the loose, unsupervised. Now he found a cool station for Micky to sing along to. Mike had missed his voice.

“Oh, man, this is groovy!” Micky enthused as the train bumped off the ‘cliff’ and juddered over the iron trestles of the bridge spanning the drop below. “How did they get all this up here into the westside of Los Angeles?”

“You should know.” Mike passed him the bottle. “He’s your godfather. Was, I mean. Sorry.” He had no idea if Micky had been close to the movie mogul whose estate this was. Had been. Close enough to have gotten Mike this job, from his son and heir who now lived here, at least. He risked taking a peep at Micky. “Sammy di Luca, you said? Owned Eclipse Studios? You know, with contacts like that—”

“Who needs enemies. No, I know what you’re thinking: connections to a major studio, how come I got nowhere in the industry? Sammy was a good friend of Dad’s. Put him in some great movies and they hung out a lot. With Mom too. And, usual story…” He paused to negotiate the overpass. “He made a pass at Mom, and Dad punched him out. End of friendship.”

Mike could understand that. “And that killed your relationship with him too?”

“Yeah. He said after that, when he was near me, all he could see was a huge fist headed for him.”

“Yeah, but to be fair, so do a lot of people say that about you, you know?” This made Micky laugh and Mike ruffled his curls and passed him the bottle. “But we love ya anyway.”

“Thanks. I gotta say how much I like you in uniform. And—”

“How d’you get in here?” Mike thought to ask. The Holmby Hills estate was secure, walled and protected, and he was supposedly there to ensure it stayed that way.

“I got my ways.” Micky’s face could’ve illustrated _shifty_ in a photo-comic or _fumetti_, Peter called them, after the puffs of smoke thought bubbles in them. He’d made them, as a teenager and at college. Funny he was thinking so much about Peter today.

“Come on, birthday boy. Let’s go avail ourselves of the amenities,” Micky added.

“The house is locked up tight,” Mike warned him.

With a, “Don’t insult me,” Micky took another sip of Scotch. He pointed around the bottle at the signpost they were coming to. “Fancy a swim?”

Mike took his present back. “Well, I don’t fancy a game of tennis or bowls. Or putting.” He added the last when they passed the arrow pointing that way. “Hey, we’re coming to the tunnel. It’s a little…”

“_Spooookyy?_” intoned Micky as they descended into the S-shaped passage that went under some prize flowers or bushes or other.

“I was gonna say dark, but yeah. It’s a little creepy, right?” Seemed Micky agreed—least, he clutched Mike’s leg. High on the upper thigh. “Look, daylight,” Mike was glad to be able to say before Micky’s fingers strayed farther. “You can let go now.”

Micky did, with a muttered, “_Spoilsport._”

The pool, one of the railway’s four halts, was between the main house, all nine thousand square feet of it, and the guest house, all seven hundred square feet of it. “Water’s heated, right?” Micky asked, stripping off and not waiting for an answer before running down the length of the diving board…and off the end.

“Yeah?” Mike replied, shaking off the water that Micky’s dive-bomb had splashed on him. He’d been swimming every day, and made sure to keep the heating on. “Hey, best put your boxers on if you’re going down the slide. Telling you for your own good. Think about what you stand to lose,” Mike called when Micky surfaced.

“Sit to lose, you mean.” Micky shook his curly hair back. He caught the shorts Mike threw in for him and wriggled his way into them.

Mike slipped off his uniform and pulled on his gown over his pjs to go recline in an inflatable pool chair, one with a built-in ledge on the front for his car magazine and a holder at the side for his whiskey bottle. Ah. This was the life. Hmm. How many pages could he read before Micky—

“_Mike?_”

Ten. More than he’d have betted, even taking the waterslide into account.

“Pretending I can’t hear ya,” he called back.

“And I’m ignoring that. Have you checked out the waterfall?”

The pool was no tame rectangle or even kidney-bean shape, but irregular, with rocky indentations and outcrops, and the waterslide was part of what looked like a pile of stones and stone ledges at one end, with water tumbling over them, to cascade into the pool. Micky slid on his stomach down the row of stone shelves in a way Mike doubted the designers had intended anyone to ever, and dropped into the pool. The waves he caused rocked Mike where he sat, and he had to paddle to stay still.

“We gotta get behind it!” Micky called. “I bet there’s a secret tunnel there.”

“Bet there isn’t, babe.”

“Bet there is, toots.”

“Bet there isn’t, kid.”

“Bet there is, Tex.”

After a minute of this, and running out of epithets and sobriquets, Mike gave in and paddled his chair over. “What d’you bet?” he asked, peering through the curtain of falling water. All he could see was a small hollow, like a cave. Might even be a nice, quiet space.

“What? Oh. Well, I got a big fat lack of moolah, as usual, so, I don’t know, winner gets a favor from the loser?”

Yeah, they tended to work like that, with their system of bets and forfeits. Peter had won himself a month of no laundry duties and Davy hadn’t taken out the trash in weeks. Months. Ever? Had anyone ever seen him do it?

Mike shrugged and Micky took that for agreement. He yanked Mike by the wrist out of his chair, into the water and through the spray to the grotto beyond. Shocked by the sudden immersion, Mike barely had time to make a grab for his bottle. They could barely stand up in the small space, and he turned to Micky to crow a triumphant _I told you so_, but Micky had vanished. Gone. Not there, Disappeared. _Oh well. _Shrugging, Mike prepared to step back into the pool and return to his relaxation, when a slim hand grabbed his ankle.

“Don’t do that!” Mike yelped. “I nearly dropped my Scotch, man!” He swung around to see Micky’s head and shoulders sticking out of a hole at the back of the grotto. Well, he saw them for a second, before the rock wall of the cave slid closed, cutting Micky off. Trapping him.

“Micky!” Mike shouted, feeling foolish a half-second later when the fake wall moved again, revealing Micky, his hand on the mechanism, whose movement couldn’t be heard above the sound of the water. “It’s a slope?”

“Tun-nel,” corrected Micky in a sing-song. “Into the house. Come on!”

“Hey, that’s not fair—you knew!” griped Mike, following the cheating louse. “That makes the bet null and void.”

“Really? Because I don’t recall any discussion on how prior knowledge of the subject factored in.” His Peter impression over—and it wasn’t a patch on the real thing—Micky snagged a towel from a hook and threw it to Mike. It smelled old and a little musty, although that could have been the tunnel.

Mike was glad to dab at himself, but still gritted out, “You snowed me, man!” He set off after Micky along the passage, whose use or rationale Mike couldn’t even begin to fathom, but he assumed Micky did, along with his knowledge that it accessed the house. Which remined Mike— “Hey, the main house is alarmed!” he warned him.

“Really? What scared it?” came Micky’s riposte.

“Ha fucken ha,” Mike groused. Thankfully, seeing as they were both still wet, the tunnel was a short one. “We’re in a cellar?” he queried, peering around at the racks and rows of stuff and taking a shot of Chivas to warm up.

“Basement,” Micky corrected. “Just up there’s the spa wing.”

Mike had been trying to work out where they were. The steam room and sauna suite, accessed by its own side door, must be just above their heads.

“And they dump the supplies around here.” Micky rummaged around for towelling robes. He shrugged into one and Mike stripped off his wet clothes—raising a _don’t-you-dare_ eyebrow at Micky—and did the same. He rolled their damp stuff up into one towel.

“We won’t set off alarms if we hug the walls,” Micky said, keeping flat to one as he walked, even up the stairs.

Mike, following him, hoped it was true. He was kinda curious about the house. Oh, not the spa rooms so much, and the masseur and beautician wouldn’t be there today anyway. No, he wanted to see the— “Old West!” he exclaimed, pushing through the wooden swing doors into the bar. “A Western saloon!”

“Also known as a watering trough, grogshop, and gin mill,” Micky threw in.

“I don’t want no gin,” Mike declared, staring along the length of the burnished mahogany bar and up to the bottles on the shelves.

“No, let’s get straight to the dancing girls,” Micky agreed, rubbing his hands.

They didn’t find saloon floozies, but the Second Chance Saloon did have a pianola, which freaked Micky out a little when Mike set it playing from a piano roll. He walked all around, his hands outstretched as if feeling for something incorporeal. It also had a card table, where Micky beat Mike at poker, and a shelf of whiskies, where Mike beat Micky in sampling.

“Next?” Micky suggested, jerking a thumb out of the door.

“Next? Ohh!” Mike took in the English pub décor of the Gentleman’s Relish club, along the corridor. It had a real piano, a dartboard, and a whole row of bottles of port. Mike blamed the latter for making him lose to Micky at the former.

“Get the horn?” Micky asked. “It’s a _game_, Mike. Look.”

“Why…is there a bull’s horn sticking out of the wall way up there?” Mike wondered.

“Same reason there’s a metal ring on a chain hanging from the ceiling!” Micky pointed to it. “You gotta get the horn.”

Mike had discovered stout by then, and blamed his fascination with its black body and creamy white head for making him lose this game too to Micky. He was glad of a sit down on a high stool and to snack on pretzels and nuts in the Big Apple martini bar over the way. “Euuugh,” he spluttered. “That’s the worst Manhattan I’ve ever had.”

Micky flipped his bar towel over one shoulder. “That’s because it’s an old-fashioned.”

“Then get me a modern one!” Mike was relaxed enough to think his joke hilarious. He opened his mouth for Micky to throw olives in, not realizing he was leaning closer and closer, as was Micky, until Micky was easing a shiny black olive between Mike’s lips with his forefinger and thumb.

“Lemme know when you wanna switch to sweet,” Micky murmured. “I got a nice ripe cherry here with your name on it.”

“I’m fine with salty, thanks,” Mike demurred, unwilling to believe Micky would make _that_ witticism.

Micky’s eyes gleamed. “Good to know.”

Mike decided to ignore it. Ignore this…whatever it was. “So, what’s next? The bowling alley? Billiard room?”

“Cinema?” Micky abandoned his bartending. “Not a birthday without a movie, right?”

“Riiight?” Mike queried, trotting after his guide to a small custom movie theater. “Oh, lookee there. A back row and everything. If only we had girls. Don’t suppose that’s a part of my birthday presents?”

“What, you think we sprang for a hooker? _Mike!_” Micky looked genuinely shocked.

“I didn’t mean…” Mike gave up on that and in trying to read the titles on the reels of films.

“What about the bubbly, beautiful Bea?”

His lips pursed in a _W_ shape to ask “Who?” Mike remembered who Micky meant. God, it’d had only been a week or so ago. “_W_ell,” he saved, cleverly, “nothing doing there. Just a couple dates, you know.”

Dates like him asking her to come watch them play, then taking her for a walk on another occasion. Talk about half-hearted. No surprise Bea had soon dropped him as a romantic proposition. She still flirted with him, when they saw her in the drinks kiosk, if not as much, and with the others, a little, too, but the guy code meant none of the others could get with her now.

“Well, maybe I’ll find us a movie with hot chicks in. You up for that? Something a little…different?” Micky left the row of round silver cases and thumped his fist on the section of wall underneath their shelf. It slid open, revealing more reels of film inside, and Micky perused these, to make his choice. “Settle in while I set this bad boy up,” he instructed Mike, going to the sound and projection equipment at the back of the room.

The lights dimmed and the small room felt intimate, suddenly. The mix of drinks began to catch up with Mike, so he stayed one step ahead by taking another blast of Scotch. That oughta do it. He offered the bottle to Micky when he came to sit next to him, his white robe gaping to display a vee of his chest. He’d drunk far more than Mick, he thought. Well, it was Mike’s birthday. And Mick was younger. _Too young._ He snorted.

“Huh?”

“Oh, just thinking how you’re not legal.” Mike held the bottle out of Micky’s underage reach.

“Heh. Funny you should say that, ’cause this isn’t, either.” Micky waved a hand at the screen.

“This…” Mike took a good look as the titles finished rolling on the screen. Watched the poor acting. Noted the cheap sets. Listened to the cheesy music. Waited. Watched, noted and listened again. “Micky, is this what I think it is?”

“Oh, you’ve seen it?”

“Well, not this one specifically.” Least Mike didn’t think so. He frowned. “I don’t get it. That piano sounds fine to me—why would that rich lady want it tuning? _Oooh,_” he winced a few minutes later. “That guy’s not holding the tuning fork right. Pete’d be furious. You know how he gets at poor instrument technique and handling.”

“The…instrument handling gets better,” Micky promised.

“Wait.” Mike’s drink sloshed as he gestured with his bottle. “This plot doesn’t make sense. The piano tuner’s blind, so why’s she doing that in front of him?”

“There’s a twist?” Micky offered.

“Ohhh.” Mike got it when the piano tuner cast aside his dark glasses and stood, making unerringly for the rich housewife. “He was what, hungover?”

“More like…hung,” came Micky’s correction, his assessment a second later.

“And now I see why the second guy.” Mike tilted his head to watch, not banging into Micky’s as Micky’s was similarly angled to one side. “I thought he was, like, a backup tuner?”

“Strong union,” Micky commented. “As is _this_.” They both tilted their heads to the other side.

“I…see what you mean about the twist. And that one. And that one.” Mike shifted in his seat.

Beside him, Micky shifted too. Huh. Mike had thought the seats were separated by an armrest, but they didn’t seem to be.

“Mike, I gotta ask…” Micky’s voice came hesitantly. “Am I bigger than the guy? Not _that_ one. No one is.”

Mike thought _he_ might be.

“That one,” Micky clarified, when the _that one_ in question was visible. Briefly. “You remember, mine, right? From back in the summer?”

“What kinda question’s that? Micky, I ain’t exactly got a photograph-dick memory, you know?”

“Okay, remember it from last month then.” Micky faced him, a half-smirk hovering.

Oh, the little— Mike had only— “What’s this all about?” Mike deflected.

“’Cause lately, I been thinking I’m a bit smaller than other guys, you know?”

“It’s not like I ever took a pole. A survey, I mean.” Mike thought he might have pronounced the word wrong. “It’s hard…I mean it’s not _easy_ to say.”

“No, you’re right.” And Micky grabbed Mike’s hand and used it to cup himself. “It is hard. So?”

“So… Oh!” Mike dragged his mind back to the original question. He’d seen Micky bare-assed. Been in bed with him buck-naked. Jerked him off butt-naked. If that was an expression. Just, here, even with them half-clothed, things felt…different. And not just because Micky’s dick was covered in expensive terrycloth.

“You’re probably about as big as the first guy, sure.” Mike patted him reassuringly, wishing he hadn’t when he realized which part of Micky he was caressing. He removed his hand to open his whiskey and take a much-needed blast. Mike was glad when the movie came to a cl— _An end_, he resolutely thought, not wanting Micky to pick up any stray thought. Although the vibes in the room were hard to miss. He slid his hand from Micky’s to clap. Added a whistle for good measure. Wished that every word he thought didn’t sound sleazy.

“You dug that? It’s not one of his best.” Micky indicated the director’s name. “His early work’s a bit derivative, you know?”

Mike hadn’t ever given that much thought to the artistic merits of porno movies, and wasn’t about to start now. “Guess we should go.”

“That works out well ’cause I got you a final present, but it’s part of a treasure hunt,” Micky said, standing carefully, his robe tented.

“You mean a scavenger hunt, with clues?” Mike doubted he could solve a single one, the state he was in.

“No. Just treasure, but you’ve gotta hunt it, so ya gotta give me a head…”

“Huh?”

“Start!” Micky finished, his grin filling out his face.

“Wait.” Mike got to his feet too, trying to ignore the way his own dick was trying to part the fold of _his_ gown. He attempted a goofy face. “You plied me with drink, showed me porn…anyone would think…”

“Thinking? Overrated,” cried Micky, scampering from the room.

_The little…_ Mike tidied away and retraced his steps. Micky was unlikely to be in main house, not with the alarm system. He’d’ve gone to the guest house, Mike thought, finding an open side door that led out to near the other house. Mike closed the door behind him and headed for the guest cabin. It was one room, but far from a cramped studio, and looked groovy now, with the lighting in little spots, and some jazzy music playing softly. Just being in here put him in a good mood. Oh wait—that was probably the whiskey. “Chivas?” he queried, giggling when he realized what he’d said instead of, “Marco.”

“So Regal!” came in a bubbling answering giggle…from the bed.

“Micky?” Mike’s tone reflected his doubt. The body lying on his king-sized bed was Micky-sized and shaped, but wrapped in a huge roll of paper, like a cut-price mummy. Mike stuck his fingers into the face section and made eyeholes, and Micky’s almond-slanted eyes blinked up at him. “What in the world?”

Micky made a noise and wriggled so Mike ripped a smile-shaped gap for Micky’s grinning mouth. “Unwrap me to find out!” he ordered.

Laughing, Mike started unwinding him, to slow, then stop. “Mick…you’re naked?” he queried.

“You ask me that a lot. But this time…” Micky wriggled, to indicate Mike should keep going, then waited until Mike crinkled the last twist of paper off and away. “You’d be almost right.”

Mike collapsed on the bed. “See you really committed to the Christmas theme there, buddy!” he spluttered, pointing at Micky’s dick…and the red and white ribbons wound around it, along its full and getting fuller length. “You look like a goddam candy cane—I can even smell peppermint!

Micky got an idle hand to his cock. “Good enough to eat?” he purred, turning the strip of green ribbon fastened halfway down his dick to reveal the bow it was tied in. “Course, ya gotta undo it first.”

It should have been silly, one of Micky’s ridiculous jokes, but it was kinda, well, not unsexy, Mike found. Then he frowned. “Wait. this is my present? My present is giving _you_ head?”

“Oh…you prefer to fuck me?” Micky countered, moving to slap an ass cheek.

Mike sank back against the pillows. “So I give you a blowjob and or screw you? As in, I’m doing all the work and you’re having all the fun? Man – ya gotta be the worst present-giver ever!” He tried to be sensible, even against the scent of peppermint making his senses swim. Oh wait—that was probably the whiskey, again. Still. “Mick, I know you’re only kidding around, but ya gotta stop, bud.”

“Who says I’m kidding? And not about the peppermint candy cane…”

Micky grabbed something small from under his pillow, then pounced on Mike, got his robe open and held the miniature bottle aloft for a half-second before drizzling its green liquor contents onto Mike’s cock.

“Fuck, Micky! That fucking _stings_!” Mike howled.

“What, this crème de menthe? I better get it off quick then…”

And the loon descended, in the direction of Mike’s dick, his intent obvious. “Micky, man, stop. Seriously!” Mike was yelping now, grabbing handfuls of his towelling robe to rub at his cock, in theory to clean it, in practice rubbing himself harder in the process. And that it wasn’t a totally unpleasant process, he’d never admit.

“Mike…” Micky attacked, pinning Mike’s wrists to the mattress, one either side of him. “If you can’t enjoy a treat on your birthday, when can you? And I don’t just mean you.”

Mike struggled, just a little, against Micky’s slim but strong hands holding his wrists. Micky straddled him, a knee just above each hip bone, his snub nose hovering, his curly hair bouncing. “Mick, I’m a little drunk,” Mike admitted. “I’m not really thinking straight.”

“_Straight?_” Micky sniggered. “And what did I tell you, about thinking? Don’t think. Feel. Tell me what you’re feeling. Blurt it out, birthday boy, without Mike-thinking getting in the way.” Again, it should have sounded silly or stupid, but it came out warm and intimate. And…_inviting_.

“That you’re a mighty tempting sight. And feel. And offer,” Mike confessed.

Micky gave a surprisingly dirty chuckle and moved a little lower.

“Wait.” Mike tried for sanity. For normality. “You know what you’re doing?” And lost. Big-time.

“Oh, yeah…” Micky’s warm breath on Mike’s swelling cock was a thrill all by itself, never mind him scoring his nails down Mike’s chest and nipples as he moved. He paused, then looked up, his eyes wide. “That is one huge dick, Mike! Length, girth…you could work in porn!”

“I’ve thought that,” Mike admitted, bucking a little under Micky’s scrutiny and strolling a hand down the side of his body, to circle his dick and pull himself harder. Lengthier. Girthier. Preening. He tried to think. Micky had seen him naked, of course, but not…from this angle. This close.

“And that bubble just there. I gotta…”

Mike’s hand fell away when he felt the warm lap of Micky’s tongue on the head of his dick, licking the pre-cum beading there. Micky sat back, a weight on Mike’s legs, to rub his tongue around his lips and rub them together, tasting, his eyes on Mike’s the entire time.

“Oh, you taste _good_,” Micky said. So good, he went back for more, taking Mike’s cock in his hand to lick it from base to tip then back down again, again and then again, covering as much surface with his tongue as he could. “Like that?”

“Ohh yeah.” Mike’s groan must’ve sounded like encouragement—Micky swallowed him all the way to the back of his throat.

Micky didn’t keep him there, so deep, for long, but long enough for Mike to almost come from the sensation. When had he last got a blow job? He couldn’t think, but doubted that, whenever it was, whoever it was had given such enthusiastic head as Micky. And whoever it’d been, Mike was sure he didn’t enjoy it as much as this. He sank into the pleasure of Micky’s mouth on him, jolted to the surface every time Micky changed things up, lapped his tongue more corduroy than velvet, made a tighter circle of his lips, used his teeth to give an occasional quick, dirty scrape. Mike wanted to howl.

“_Fuck_, kid!” he panted, finding his hand had tangled in Micky’s curls. He had to fight himself not to force Micky lower…and hold him there. At the back of his mind, Mike recognized that for all his enthusiasm and ability, Micky was more novice than anything. But God, it didn’t seem like it when Micky moved enough to get a hand down and gently squeezed Mike’s balls—Mike knew he wasn’t going to last much longer under that.

“Micky,” he moaned, bucking his hips, giving Micky even more to suck on. The rapid movement below him confused him for a second until he realized Micky was striping off the stupid ribbons from his dick and taking care of himself. Probably just as well that he was. Mike doubted he’d be able to reciprocate, not with the first signs of his impending orgasm tingling their way down his spine and into his balls that Micky was now—_Jesus!_—licking. He ran his tongue over each one, then slid all the way up Mike’s cock to catch the head once more in his mouth. Kid had some fucken moves…

“Micky…” Mike put as much warning into it as he could. “Coming…I’m—”

Micky gave a final slurp and suck and Mike shook with the power of his climax. He might have wanted to shoot down Micky’s throat, but Micky pulled off, and used his hand instead, jerking Mike hard in a succession of fierce pulses, slowing but not stopping until he’d milked him of every last drop. Still holding Mike’s spasming dick, he pushed himself up Mike’s body and took his mouth at the same time as he jacked himself, making Mike a part of his own climax.

And _fuck_, Mike swore the feel and sight of Micky like that was making him hard again. He sucked on Micky’s tongue, tasting a weird mix of himself and sticky, thick peppermint. Micky groaned, working his cock faster, until Mike knocked his hand away, taking hold of Micky’s cock himself to pump it hard until Micky came, spraying warm cum through Mike’s hand and onto his bare stomach.

Micky collapsed onto Mike, who threw an arm around him, blotting the sweat from Micky’s back with the terrycloth robe he still wore. His arms were a little shaky, he realized, and he wondered if Micky’s were too. Micky’s raspy breaths were hot on Mike’s heck, and Mike’s panting ruffled the curls on the top of Micky’s head. Mike caught a fractured, “_Wow,_” and it made him tighten his arms around Micky. Then Micky laughed.

“We’re a mess,” he said, raising up a little.

“Stickiness’s your fault,” Mike managed, meaning the mint cream crap. His body wanted to sink into the sleep that wanted to roll over it, into the tiredness from the alcohol and the sex, but his mind was trying to stop it. He rolled Micky away a little to clean up their cum with his robe, which he wriggled out of.

“Mike.”

Micky’s tone had Mike looking up.

“What happens on birthdays, stays on birthdays.”

Micky’s gaze, locking with Mike’s, made his words a declaration, one to which Mike nodded assent, but he didn’t break their eye contact, and Micky blinked first, in the form of his gaze softening, the light in it adding an _unless…_ to his statement. Mike didn’t reply, instead pulling Micky’s head down at an angle to aim a kiss at it, landing it half on his forehead and half in his hairline. “Loved it,” he husked, his tongue thick and heavy, not knowing he was going to say that, but glad his words hadn’t come out as, “_Thanks._”

He pulled Micky flat, to lie next to him, curled into him, and let Mike sleep. Fat chance.

“Just be glad your birthday’s the thirtieth and not the thirty-first and that it’s not later.”

“Whhhhyy?” Mike asked him, his face and head one huge yawn.

“Oh, you know what they say, that who you’re doing at midnight on New Year, you’re doing all year!”

“Don’t think that’s right. It’s _what_…”

“Nah. It’s like the old saying goes, it’s not _what_, you know; it’s _who_.”

“Mick, you and puns? Quit while you’re ahead.” Mike knuckled into the nutjob’s curls. “Oh and by the way, you’re good at head.”

“I _am_?”

Mike managed a nod. “Best birthday present ever.” He almost choked on the laugh he was too tired to voice. “’M just glad _that_ wasn’t somethin’ th’three o’you went in on together, too.” Because while he couldn’t and didn’t want to imagine _Davy_ in bed with him, _Peter_, however…

Mike passed out.


	8. Spring 1966

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit darker than the usual chapters.

Playing on stage, Mike kept his head down. If he looked Davy’s or Micky’s way, the gleam in their eyes and the twist to their lips mocked his outfit. Plus Mike was sick of their _Nesmith, Michael Nesmith_, and _shaken, and very stirred_, and _does that come with a License to Thrill?_ witticisms. As if his suit was his choice!

He’d kept his head down when he was off stage too—any guests at this shindig who’d caught his eye had rattled off drinks orders to him. One man’s secret agent was a rich-swank man’s waiter. Said it all, really. Although, to be fair, offstage _was_ a cocktail lounge.

And he actually _had_ to keep his head down onstage, and look at the strings. He hadn’t played a six-string in an age, and hardly knew this song. Again, not his choice. But when he did raise his head, he found himself glancing over at the bassist, who was singing. Mike had never seen him in a tux before, with his blond hair carefully gelled like that and dark glasses covering his brown eyes. He looked kinda cool. Mike was trying to work out how much shorter than him the slim, toned guy was when he dipped his head and shot Mike a look over the top of his glasses. Oh. How long had he been looking over at Mike?

And that look could only be described as _flirty_, right? Maybe even a little bit dirty, if you squinted? Mike had suspected something of the kind. _Suspected, expected._ He made a rhyme of it. But here, now? The object of his gaze bent over his bass, and memories of Peter helping look after Mrs. Purdey’s grandson, little Henry, crowded Mike. He’d really been amazed at Peter’s expertise, his casual, natural skill with the six-week-old, how he’d fed him, burped him, diapered him, gotten him to sleep, his blond hair swinging around his face as he’d bent low over the newborn laid on his lap or held to his chest.

The set came to an end and with it Mike’s obligations, the couple songs he’d agreed to fill in on. Exchanging a last quick but loaded look with the blond bassist, he left the stage area in the midst of the polite applause, and found Luke to hand him his guitar back. The guy didn’t look any better for having sat out for a couple numbers. “Want me to get you a glass of water or something?” Mike offered, not liking the man’s pallor or dry lips. “It’s not like I ain’t dressed for it.”

Luke gave a feeble shake of his head and bumped his fist to Mike’s. He attempted a grin at someone coming up behind Mike, and Mike angled his head to see it was the blond, brown-eyed someone who he had been _expecting, suspecting_ would follow him and join him.

“Luke’s a tough cat. He’ll be peaches,” said J, taking a first long, grateful draw of his cigarette, then hooking his index finger over it to pull it from his mouth to speak. As a bassist, he could probably smoke while playing if he wanted. As bassist and lead singer, probably not. “But gear of you to fill in for a few, la,” he added. And as bassist and lead singer, like his idol, Paul McCartney, in addition to performing with a Mersey beat, J spoke with a Mersey sound too. When he remembered.

“Not a problem,” Mike assured them both.

“Spot ya a beer? The imported stuff’s over there.”

Mike nodded and walked with J to the end of the long table where slim, long-necked green bottles with exotic—meaning unreadable—labels nestled in ice. J rammed his dark glasses in his top pocket and jammed his cigarette between his lips to deal with the bail tops. Mike supposed there must be an easy trick to removing the metal and porcelain swing-tops, but he didn’t have enough experience with them to know. J had angled his head away, but Mike got a cloud of his smoke.

He gave a pretend cough. “Been meaning to ask—that your get-out? You going for bad lungs, like Luke’s going the starvation route between now and his call-up, so he won’t make weight?”

J laughed and clinked his bottle against Mike’s, but the look in his brown eyes was a little bleak. “Yeah. I’d smoke a goddamn _pole_ to get out of the draft, man.”

Mike didn’t miss the innuendo, but didn’t respond. He was sorry he’d raised the topic. The spectre, more like, the way it hung over the scene, over everything and everyone. Well, not quite…everyone. Mike was taking steps for them. Micky was safe; Davy too. Peter— Mike yanked his thoughts from straying too far in that direction.

“Can’t your pa help none?” he queried. He jerked a thumb at the apart-hotel’s cocktail lounge where they were standing and where tinkly jazzy music was being piped around now the Foreign Agents had finished their set. Sorry, the Secret Agents, as they’d been re-christened, in keeping with the venue, just as their black turtlenecks, slacks and trenchcoats had been replaced by evening dress, to match.

“He sure can’t be hurtin’ for cash. Oh, I know this ain’t his place, but…” Mike wanted to shake his head at how J’s determinedly hip beatspeak made his own Texan thicken in response. He’d used the phrase “in high cotton” the first time he’d gotten into conversation with the guy, for fuck’s sake.

J shrugged, a loping roll of his shoulders that looked like he was trying to free himself from a yoke. “Fifth anniversary, celebrated with top-tier corporate clients. Yeah, the venue’s nothing to do with us, but it’s free.”

It would be, Mike supposed, with the hotel happy for J’s father’s travel management company to book said corporate clients into said venue, the new hotel, just as J’s father hoped the clients would continue to use the family’s corporate travel company. He thinned his accent out to add, “But the business is doing fine, right?”

“Oh yeah, Pop’s got some well-lined pockets. Got a fine-feathered nest. Only, he’s proud of having served his country”—J gave a mock-salute, jerky like a robot—“and wouldn’t dream of using his dough to buy me out.”

He took a glug of his beer, the abrupt knock of the glass bottle against his teeth making Mike wince. Or maybe that was the lounge bar instrumental version of a top-ten tune that had started playing.

“Shame.” Mike meant it.

J would know a guy who knew a guy to pay to make deferment happen, Mike betted. Hell, if this were back home, he’d know one himself. “Well…” He looked for somewhere to place his empty bottle, and J took it from him to hand to a waiter, brushing his fingers against Mike’s as he did so. Mike…needed more than that though. Because _that?_ Wasn’t worth risking a goddamn thing over. He stood firm as if he hadn’t felt the touch.

“Actually…” J shot him a narrow-eyed glance. “You could do me a favor, pard’ner?”

“Another?” Mike quipped, pointing at Luke, now sitting, but still refusing offers of food and drink.

“Hey, we offered to pay you!”

“Yeah, well, an evening out, three of us getting fed and watered, with first call on the leftover food’s more useful,” Mike assured J. “What do you need there, good buddy?”

“Come meet my parents?”

Mike was glad he’d finished drinking—spluttering beer over the borrowed tux would not have been good. “But this is so sudden!” he Southern-Belled. “I didn’t even think liked me in that way.”

“Oh, but I do.” J left a pause, and when Mike raised an eyebrow, smirked. “No, man, it’s ’cause you’ve served.”

“Yeah, I gave in.” His turn to smirk at J looking lost, then smoothing it over, figuring confused wasn’t cool. “When people mistook me for a server, with me dressed like this at a shindig like this. Started fetchin’ ’em drinks. Joke!” he added, when J looked thunderous.

J did the two-finger pistol mime at Mike in retaliation for Mike having gotten him. “No, it’s just Dad thinks all my friends are long-haired degenerates. Yeah, yeah, so he’s right. And this is uncool to ask, I dig that, but if I could just introduce him to one of them who was in the forces, it might… I don’t know. Whatever.”

“I’m cool with it. Lemme just check on the other guys. There’s just me to keep an eye on ‘’em, with Peter being away.” Mike swivelled around to locate the twosome.

“New York, right? Back to his Village roots.” J mimed strumming a banjo. “And don’t sweat the small stuff—and the other one: they’re eating and drinking and eyeing up the chicks under thirty. Both of ’em. Both the women here under thirty, that is.”

Mike was still chuckling when he was introduced to Mr. Lind, and confirming that yes, he had been in the air force, his folks figuring he needed the discipline after not doing too well in high school, and had also gotten his GED there, enabling him to go to college. He…didn’t bother mentioning that he’d dropped out of his studies.

“See, this is an example of hard work and application, Jeremiah!” thundered Mr. Lind. He shook hands with Mike.

“Don’t breathe a peep,” warned _Jeremiah_, when his father and his entourage had moved on.

“About your name? Wasn’t gonna.”

J shot him a look full of disbelief and gestured to a space away to one side of the room, emptier and quieter, on the wrong side of a small group of high-backed swivel chairs. That it was also a little darker and more intimate wasn’t lost on Mike.

“No, truly I wasn’t—I’m just too stunned about your father tipping me five bucks!” Mike opened his hand and showed J the bill his father had slid into it while shaking it.

“Goddam _idiot_! Fuck, man, I’m so sorry.” J’s eyes thundered.

“Hey, don’t sweat it, man! No, I’m just a little confused, is all. Was it for my service—”

“Or services rendered, in advance?”

Mike, who’d been about to riff on service to his country vs. his service to the party guests, as a waiter, or so people kept thinking, inclined his head at that. He held the bill up to the light and pulled it straight between the fingers and thumbs of both hands, to make a snapping noise. “Wow. A five-spot? He can’t think I’m any good, in that case.”

“And are you?” came back thick and fast.

“Am I what?” Mike replied, his eyes on J and his voice equally as low as J’s had been.

J blew out a long sigh, nodding slightly, his brows lowered. “You…got a chick, Mike?”

_Interesting angle._ Mike swung a chair fully around to lean against its back. He was kinda enjoying this, making cool cat J work for it. Whatever _it_ should prove to be. And, yeah, enjoying the attention. “Not at the moment. Too busy looking after the kids.” He indicated Davy and Micky, over beyond the potted palms, trying to look as though they weren’t spying and eavesdropping.

J’s half-smile was a rueful twist of his lips. Mike reckoned J was too cool to resort to asking him what singers or movies he liked, checking him out that way. And way too boss to mention friends they might have in common, finding out if they were both a friend of a certain one, Dorothy, and how much they were into her.

“You know, this needs more drink. Cool your jets here a sec, flyboy?”

Mike, who’d been thinking the same thing, laughed at the call-back to his stint in the air force and waited for J to return with two rocks glasses of whiskey. Two almost full to the brim rocks glasses of whiskey. Mike tilted his, making the soft light in this dimly lit part of the bar dance on the dark amber, trying not to think what the color reminded him of.

“What? It’s a single!” J said, adding, “malt,” in a quieter tone.

Mike acknowledged the quip as he downed an unwise measure of the Scotch, still thinking about J’s persona. J had a bike, and Mike had seen him hanging out with the same bunch of bikers Mike ran with, a while back. More recently, though, J seemed more what Peter would call _fauxhemian_, and yet the hip, beat act came across as more fun than phony. Mike…kinda dug it, anyway. “What’re we drinking to?” he asked, holding up his drink.

“To _whatever_,” J replied, making the last word a toast, one which Mike clinked glasses on and knocked back enough of a mouthful to burn him right through.

“You got a girlfriend?” he suddenly asked J.

“Not since grade school.” J gave a mock shudder, eyeing Mike over the rim of his Scotch as he drank.

“Just not found the right woman?” Mike couldn’t resist it.

“Yeah, that’s it.” J took a half-step nearer, examining Mike’s face, checking. What he saw emboldened him to add, “They’re all lacking…a certain something, I find.”

“Or rather you _don’t_ find.” Mike was enjoying this, letting the tenuous sheen of awareness, of arousal, glimmer and gleam. It had sparked on their previous meeting, but that had been someplace where it hadn’t been possible to talk much, let alone take any action. Had J engineered this occasion, in this place, under these circumstances, to kindle that spark? That was arousing in itself. He hoped it was true.

J managed not to spit out his mouthful of imported whiskey. He reached to put his almost-empty glass down, holding it up to Mike in salute first. “Good to see you like word games. I’m…kinda wonderin’ what other kind you’re into, though.”

“Some.” Mike didn’t derail with any comments about beach volleyball or checkers…or segue into baseball. He wanted to see how J would frame his next question. And J knew it.

J took out his pack of cigarettes and tapped it against the palm of his other hand. He spared Mike a glance. “Strong, silent type. I get that. Just…I wish you’d give a little, ya know?”

“I wish you’d give me a cigarette.”

“Really?” J held out the pack.

Mike took one, and the lighter, lighting his cigarette while J took himself one from his pack. Mike didn’t smoke often, and wouldn’t have chosen this brand, but he jerked his chin, indicating J should bend his head for a light. Mike slipped J’s lighter back into J’s pocket and held out the smoldering end of his cigarette to the unlit end of J, and J’s eyes gleamed as bright as the cigarette’s burning cherry. He obviously knew the name of this action, like Mike did…and what it signified. Well, that wasn’t too elliptic, when both acts had the same name and one stood in for the other. _A butt-fuck._

“You know, smoking kinda goes with drinking, wouldn’t you say? Least, makes _me_ wanna drink a frothy one,” J remarked, still not unlocking his gaze from Mike’s.

J’s comment pushed Mike back a few years, to basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Bexar County. “_Una clara?_” he asked. That Texas county had a large Hispanic population, and a lot of slang, including queer code, had tended to be Hispanic.

“Huh?”

“_Una clara. Cerveza y gaseosa_,” Mike said. “Or, here, a frothy one, apparently.” You lived and you learned.

“Beer and soda? Wow, man, that’s taking me back to a looonnng weekend in TJ. And I was only there three days.” J’s grin split his face. “_Si, me gusta tomar una clara._ As a preliminary.”

Mike smiled at that, wondering if J was punning on _juegos preliminares_, or foreplay. “Good Spanish.”

“Not really. It’s limited to getting smokes, getting beer, and getting laid.”

“And there we have it.” _Or soon will._ And damn if the thought, or image, didn’t give him a boner. He shifted, drawing J’s attention to it. He’d gotten stiff before, in J’s company, and the guy hadn’t missed it them and didn’t now, if the widening of his eyes was any indication. Mike was lacking love and a little lonely, he had to admit, and J was good-looking and into him. And standing right there, the desire evident in his heavy-lidded eyes spiking Mike’s libido.

He stubbed out his cigarette, then took J’s and did the same with it. “You better have someplace we can go.”

Mike’s words came out as a growled order, and J snapped to attention. He shot a few looks around before muttering, “This way,” and ushering Mike in front of him. Their route took them close to Davy and Micky, who turned to watch them.

Mike flickered a glance from the corners of his eyes at the pair but didn’t stop or even slow down. He didn’t want to talk to them right now. What could he say? He might not have liked the way the duo were huddled, Davy pulling Micky’s head down to talk quick and private to him, gesturing with one hand, his eyes tracking Mike, but too bad. Mike wasn’t even thinking, beyond the moment.

“Where—” _The hell you think we’re going?_ Mike was about to demand when J slipped behind the fancy reception desk in the lobby, stopping when he re-emerged with a key in his hand.

“Not here,” J replied with a smirk Mike looked forward to knocking from his lips. And warmth from the Scotch was now replaced by the heat of the promise firing through him, through this. Focused on that, on getting some, Mike turned his back on the cocktail lounge and headed up the short flight of stairs leading off the lobby, at J’s indication. They turned onto the first landing above the reception and walked along it to the end to a door set just round the corner. _Discreet._ Mike took the key from J’s hand and walked in first.

“Ya got us a suite,” he commented, taking in the space.

“Executive. Executive Two-Queen, actually.” J indicated two large shapes toward the back of the room, presumably two queen-sized beds.

“Wiseguy, huh?” Before J could reply to that, Mike was on him, shoulder-charging and hip-slamming him against the closed door. Head back, he stared down at J. “So, wiseguy, you might only get one chance at this. I suggest you make it count.”

J snaked a hand to draw Mike and kissed him, strong and insistent. _Pushy._ Mike let him have that move, that lead, because he was curious. He dug kissing, in and of itself. Sometimes it answered questions, even ones you only had half-formed in the back of your mind, and sometimes it raised them. This let him taste J, the unfiltered cigarettes, the beer, the whisky, same as he himself must taste, but there was also a dryness, somehow. J, for all he was eager, was nervous?

Mike took over, deepening the kiss, raking the inside of J’s mouth with his tongue then tangling it with J’s, subduing him effortlessly, and when he pulled free, J was panting. Mike backed off a little and knocked J’s hand away from his neck, to slot his own through J’s hair. “Make it last,” he ordered, right in J’s ear. “And you better swallow. Oh don’t worry about that.” He interpreted what J was too off-balance to voice. “I reckon you can get me hard again in half a minute for your eager ass.”

It was his turn to use the door as a leaning post when J dropped to his knees and unzipped him, pausing when Mike’s dick sprang free. Mike was vain enough to feel smug at the reverent, “_fuck!_” that reached his ears. Mike knew he was big, and right now, aroused as he was? J was in for a workout.

“Taking that as approval, not instruction,” he informed J, scratching his fingers around the back of his head at the same time as J grabbed Mike’s ass cheeks to pull him closer…then swallow him whole.

“Oh yeah.” Mike thanked his luck that J was experienced. He was in for a good time. He tightened his hands in J’s hair and pumped slowly in and out of his mouth, letting out a raspy sigh when J ran his tongue up and down the length of his shaft then over the head. Mike bit back a _fuck_ when J swallowed him again and clenched his throat muscles around Mike’s cock. “Oh, you’re good,” he breathed, arching into the tight, wet heat constricting him, feeling his balls tighten. Credit where credit was due.

“Yeah? You like this?” J whispered, pulling free to do so. “What I did?” He traced a finger along a fat vein running up Mike’s cock, right to the tip that shimmered with precum. He scooped a bubble of liquid from the slit and licked it from his finger.

“Yeah, you’re doing fine, boy.” Mike looked down at him. “But don’t forget the balls.”

J didn’t reply, just got back to work, picking up the pace of his sucking and dipping a hand into the opening of Mike’s pants and briefs to massage his balls, as ordered. Guy got off on being ordered around. It was almost too easy. But then J slid a finger over Mike’s perineum and fingered his hole. Interesting. He liked to pitch too, maybe? Mike wasn’t averse to receiving. Enjoyed taking a dick, in fact, when the time was right and he was with someone who knew what they were doing…and big enough to make it worthwhile. He didn’t think this would be one of those times, though. Which was fine. Or rather, he was fine, letting J build the pleasure, feel it thicken and ripen, until it was time to claim J’s ass.

J wriggled and moved a little, and Mike peered down through the haze of his arousal to see him fumble a small tube from his pocket onto the floor. “Not yet, boy,” Mike cautioned, giving a harder thrust of his hips.

“I know,” J choked out. He took the head of Mike’s erection between his lips, teasing for a moment, easing the tip of his tongue into the slit, licking up the pre-cum. Mike thrust again, telling J without words what he wanted, making him give a slow glide of his lips down Mike’s length. He held the pause for just the right amount of time before pulling back to the head, then sliding down again, faster, all the way to the hilt.

“Oh, you’re a born cocksucker,” Mike moaned. Cradling the side of J’s head in his hand, he rubbed his thumb down J’s cheek. His other hand, he discovered, had loosed its hold on J and was flat against the wood of the door. J breathed hard or hummed around Mike’s dick, and everything in Mike heated. For a flash of a second, he wondered if he was going to come right there and then. And wouldn’t that be embarrassing? “Ease off, J.” He wasn’t too proud to ask. “You’re almost too good.” He felt the laugh J huffed out on hearing that.

J’s experience showed in him ringing the base of Mike’s erection with his fingers, holding off any danger of a climax. He looked up at Mike, all big eyes and puffy lips, judging when it was safe to get back to what he did best. Still gripping the base and looking up, he sucked the pre-cum from the slit, all sweetness and light, innocent, even, until he sank his lips down the whole length. Even that, even him scraping at the base with his teeth, was still bearable, but then he sucked long and hard, all business.

“Jesus!” Mike half-shouted, his hips starting to pump, his climax starting to uncoil—until the noise from outside the door behind him stopped him dead. “_The fuck?_” he gasped. “J—”

“I hear it.” J had pulled off and they both stilled, straining to hear what sounded like a key in the lock. _Shit._

“You better go. Your family…” Mike, voice hoarse, every cell in his body tense, pulled J to his feet. “What’s that way?” The suite must have another exit.

“Balcony.” J wiped the back of a hand over his mouth. “I can get onto another one and walk around or drop down into the parking lot.”

“What, no pool view?” Mike was amazed he could quip.

“Nah. Economy suite. Mike, I—”

The scraping, tinging noise intensified and the wood of the door shook. “_Go. _I’ll deal with this.” Mike shoved J to get him moving and watched until he vanished through the glass doors to what was presumably the balcony.

_Fuck._ Mike’s head throbbed, both the one on his shoulders and the smaller one, the one whose head had been interrupted. He could barely zip up over his aching balls and pulsing boner. He pulled his jacket over himself, his actions savage and his thoughts wild. His gaze burned through the door so hard he was surprised it wasn’t smouldering. If someone was there, hoping to make trouble for him or J, or thinking to make a profit off of threatening them with anything, they’d be fucking sorry. He had a temper, and now he let it rage, feeding it with thoughts of frontier justice.

Mike waited for anther noise then, balls thumping, dick lamenting, yanked the door open, to be almost knocked down by the figure toppling in. A figure who, despite wearing the black jacket and white apron of a waiter, was very familiar.

“_Micky?_” Mike yelled in fury. “The _hell_?”

“Oh, heh, hey ther_aaaaggh_!” The last was the noise the bastard made when Mike hauled him in and threw him against the hastily slammed door. That the action mirrored what he’d done to J not many minutes earlier stoked Mike’s fury more.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he gritted out, shoving his face close to Micky’s and pinning him to the door with one hard hand. Micky gaped at him. “Oh, wait. I know. Following me. Why?”

“I, well…we sorta thought…”

“What.” His voice was loaded and heavy, in contrast to Micky’s babbling. He loomed over him, standing toe to toe. Micky looked a little worried. _Good._ “’Cause I’m thinking you were prying. Interfering. As always. Sticking that snub little nose where it doesn’t belong and this time, spoiling all my fun.”

“_Fun?_” Micky grasped for that like a drowning man a life preserver. “So you admit…”

“What?” Mike prompted, when Micky fell silent. Rage and frustration had Mike’s hand shaking where it still gripped Micky’s shoulder. “That I came up here for sex, for a fuck, and now _pouf_. It’s vanished. Because of you stupidly— Wait.” He narrowed his eyes to stare as hard as he could at Micky, reading his face in the dim light. “You knew that! And you came up here on purpose? What the fucking _hell_, Micky?” It came out as a howl.

“Yeah, I did. Why d’you have to sneak around, Mike?” Anger simmered in Micky’s tone.

“_You’re_ angry?” Everything was ass over heels.

“Yeah, I’m mad.” Micky pulled free of Mike’s grip. Maybe Mike had loosened it, in his confusion. Micky pushed forward. “And I got a question. What’s he got that I don’t?”

“_What?_”

“Is it ’cause he’s a blond? You dig the blond guys? Guys like P—”

The cocktail of anger and frustration fuelling him, Mike thudded Micky back against the door. “You sure you wanna know?” He watched Micky nod, just a tiny movement, the most he could make with Mike’s face right in his. Now he angled his head right next to Micky’s ear. “What’s he got? _A willing ass._”

Micky turned his head to meet Mike’s. “And I ask again, Mike, what’s he got that I—”

Micky couldn’t finish the rest of the question, not with the air whooshing from his lungs, something that happened when Mike grabbed him, to twist an arm behind his back and haul him to the nearest bed and throw him face-down on it. Mike wrenched the long black jacket from Micky and ripped at the ties of the stupid apron, tearing that free, then despite Micky’s twisting, forced his hand under him to unfasten his pants and yank them down, taking his briefs with them to leave his ass bare and exposed_._

Mike straddled him, a knee caging in each hip. He bent to hiss in Micky’s ear. “This what you want? You like it hard and rough, like I do? Like I wanna fuck, right now?”

Every emotion flooding Mike right then was caused by Micky, including a new one sweeping in at Micky struggling beneath him. Mike thought he even felt the belated effects of the Scotch. Micky’s attempt to gasp out his name made it worse—or better. “This what you want from me? What you wanna do for me?” Keeping Micky pinned, Mike unscrewed the cap of the travel tube of Vaseline that J had brought and that Mike had snatched from the floor. He squirted out a splat and threw the tube onto the pillow, so Micky could see it.

With a gritted-out, “This what you want?” Mike slid his index finger along Micky’s cleft and touched it to Micky’s hole, feeling it contract and clench under his probing. “’Cause this is what _I_ want. What I _like_. What I came in here for.” He slapped the ass under him, making the pale cheeks quiver. With a strangled noise, Micky tried to buck him off. “Oh, struggle,” Mike mocked. “Sure, go ahead. I like that too. You digging this as much as I am? This good for ya?”

Micky shook and sobbed under him, emitting broken cries, and yet Mike wouldn’t stop. He worked the tip of his lubed finger in, only a milimeter, just barely breaching Micky. “What you squealing for? I told ya I like it rough. Isn’t this what you came looking for, kid?”

Micky’s struggles, his attempts to push Mike away, suddenly ceased, and to Mike it was as if a rug had been pulled out from under him. “Micky…” he breathed, his hands stilling. “You…”

“Haven’t done this before, no,” reached Mike’s ears, Micky’s voice little and lost.

Whatever Mike had been intending—to punish Micky? Scare him? Show him? _Fuck_ him? _No. Not that. I’d_—this made him stop. Made him cease and desist. Shaking almost as much as Micky had been, he swung his leg over Micky’s prone body, freeing him, and dropped to lie at his side. “_Micky,_” he gasped. “I wouldn’t…”

Because he wouldn’t have. Wouldn’t have taken him. Not like this, not here and now. Maybe not ever. He knew that much, and hoped Micky did too. He reached out to pull Micky’s briefs and pants back up, covering him, and that Micky let him was important. “I wouldn’t have,” he whispered, sliding his head next to Micky’s on his pillow, although Micky’s was still face-down. “I’m so sorry.”

The time it took Micky to inch his head around, freeing his face to look at Mike, was an eternity. “I know,” he whispered back, his voice catching. “Know you wouldn’t. Maybe I woulda deserved it but—”

“_No,_ Mick. _Jesus!_ That…” _Oh boy. Dealing with this?_ And…he had to. “Ain’t how it works,” he settled for. “It ain’t how it’s gonna happen. _If_ it happens. With me, or someone else. This…this isn’t us. It’s not what we do. What we’re about.”

“Yeah.” Micky gave a half-smile, a distant cousin to his usual manic grins. “I know that too.” He twitched. “Lube’s _weird_. It’s cold.”

Only Micky… “Yeah,” Mike agreed.

“Butts are weird too,” Micky mused.

“Yeah.” Mike gave a solemn nod. “Sex is weird too.”

“That’s not two. That’s three,” Micky said, sitting up.

“Yeah, it’s weird with three,” Mike told him, watching Micky’s eyes grow huge and round as he processed that. “Mick, I’m real sorry. I got mad and lost my temper. But I wouldn’t’ve—”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry too.”

Mike waited for him to say what for, but he didn’t. Typical Mick. He should ask if Micky wanted to talk about it more. Mike thought he’d be able to field questions, by now, now he’d calmed down. Gone down, too. He could say he didn’t have those sorts of feelings for Micky, didn’t see him that way, wouldn’t do anything that would affect the group. _Anything._ He squashed flat the memory of J toasting to _anything_, happy to _do_ anything.

“We’re cool, right?” he asked, sitting up to be level with Micky.

“Us? Of course. Sure. _Really_, Mike!” Micky insisted when Mike searched his face carefully. The smile he gave Mike was a reasonable facsimile of his usual one. “Is…this another thing we should never mention again?” he asked.

“I guess. Yep.” Mike gave a grateful nod, but suspicious too. Nothing was ever that easy, not with Micky.

“That we should forget?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you know how we should do that?” Micky stood and watched Mike straightening up the bed. “_Hypnotism._ There’s a woman, got a kiosk on the pier? She took over from the fortune teller, the one who went out of business?”

“Micky…”

“Yeah, okay, she should have seen it coming, but that doesn’t mean _this_ woman isn’t any good, does it?”

“Mick—”

“She says she make people forget things, like, to break bad habits—”

“Hey.” Mike grabbed him and pulled him close for a hug. “We’re not messing with that stuff. What if she does it at the wrong setting and I forget you completely?” Tempting as it was, right this second, he wouldn’t want to be without the nutjob. “Then I wouldn’t have my good _friend_ Micky.” He emphasized the _friend_.

Micky hugged him back. “Because we’re still friends, right?”

“Sure! Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Friends…with benefits?” Micky’s question came quietly, slyly.

“Some. We’re cuddle buddies. But I don’t think we can be more.”

“But I’m—”

“Just too darn tempting, with that cherry ass of yours.” Mike gave it a slap, feeling Micky’s huffed laugh in his neck. “And, if this evening has taught us anything, it’s that we both prefer blondes.” Mike pulled away and knuckled into Micky’s curls, dodging the dig to the ribs Micky administered in retaliation. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

“Yeah. You know, I had a traumatic evening. I’m gonna need a whole lotta TLC. Hot chocolate—with marshmallows—a story read to me, no cleaning chores for at least a month…”

Micky was still listing his demands as they pulled up to the pad. Mike supposed he should just be glad that having soothing cream administered to his nearly abused ass or having it kissed better wasn’t one of them. _Oh—_ Mike closed his eyes, because, Micky’s, glimpsed in the driving mirror, had taken on a sudden gleam at that thought.


	9. Late Fall 1966, part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The location is real, but some details are changed and the whole is either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner, for entertainment purposes. No harm is intended. I have the utmost respect for Disney in all its forms (and my favorite movie ever is Mary Poppins).
> 
> Thanks to Disney expert 70mtt for all her help!

_We got passes to a VIP bar._ Mike stared bemused from the passes, one of the bits of paper among the sheaves in his hand, to the bar in question, which was open all day.

_And a free drink in the bar._ Davy, more pragmatic tapped the beverage slips.

_A bar shaped and decked out like a monorail!_ Peter’s wide-open eyes stared at the building and what could be seen of its interior décor.

“And we’re _going_ on a monorail!” Micky, jumping up and down on the spot, pointed at the track above their heads. “What?” he said, as they stared at him, but not sparing them a glance, his eyes on the approaching carriage. “Guys, _monorail_!”

“Of all the things to get excited about. You weren’t like this when we landed at the helipad.” Davy jerked a thumb over his shoulder in its direction. “Or about the helicopter ride from LAX to the helipad. None of you actually.”

“Oh, I been in whirlybirds before, in the air force,” Mike replied.

“Me too—I traveled on them as a kid, because of my father’s job,” Peter said. His face took on a slightly puzzled look. “I even remember getting taken to and from boarding school by helo. Funny, I’d forgotten all about that. I hadn’t thought about it since I was a kid.”

“Your father’s job?” Mike echoed. “Didn’t you say your father was a teacher? An educator?”

“A college professor, yes.” Peter nodded, and his look of puzzlement deepened.

“Oh, I’ve been on a chopper too,” Micky threw in, glancing over. “That time at the Santa Martha Acatitla—” He clamped his mouth shut tight and elbowed and shouldered the three of them onto the now docked monorail car.

There was no need for the hustle—the vehicle had few people waiting and plenty of room, just as there would have been time to settle _in_ to their room, Mike felt, and not just drop their cases at reception, but they were here now.

“Hey,” he said a few minutes into their journey, mainly to get Micky’s face away from the window it was pressed hard against and probably stuck to with drool. “Before we get there, let’s go over—”

“The rules and regulations?”

“No. The dos and don’ts,” Mike replied to Peter’s long-running joke about his take-charge tendencies, running a finger down Peter’s bunny slope of a nose and lingering on the tip. Peter looked extra edible today, way he filled out his red band shirt, and as for those gray pants… Mike pulled himself together. “Number one, guys: don’t accept food or drink from strangers.”

“Huh?” Davy replied, and even Micky turned away from squinting to see their destination at that.

“I’m serious.” Mike remembered things Honeywell had said about stuff that went on in crowded places full of distracted people. Stuff like…experiments, on unknowing subjects…

Peter studied his face. “If Mike says that, he’s got his reasons, okay?”

“Thanks, honey.”

“_Honey?_” Peter queried of Mike, his lips tilted in a smile.

Mike shrugged, only a little bit embarrassed. He was trying to find the perfect endearment for Peter, and that one kept surging up. Something about his eyes, or hair, or smooth, tan skin…

“Ahem?”

Davy’s cough made Mike realize he’d been staring, a crooked smile on his face, at his honey. Or his sweetheart. Or his babe. “Two: we stay together.”

Peter nodded.

“All four of us,” Mike clarified. “And we keep cool, calm, and collected, and—”

“I CAN _SEE_ IT!” Micky, hyperventilating already, pounded on the window glass.

“Here.” Peter passed him a brown paper bag. Mike blinked to see the word _breathe_ written on it in swirly purple letters, standing out among the yellow and orange designs.

Micky took it, blew it up and burst it between his hands in one heartbeat motion. “How can I be _calm_ in the happiest place on earth?” he declared, bounding from the monorail window and scrambling down to the ground.

“What the— These windows are welded shut!” gulped a steward behind them. “How—”

“Don’t ask,” Peter advised.

“No, but how—”

“He said, _don’t ask_.” Davy put menace into it.

Mike barely heard, too busy rushing after Micky. Micky’s legs were long and slim, but Mike’s were longer and leaner-muscled. “Micky!” he shouted. Micky paused but continued, until Mike caught him up and span him around.

“Don’t you _ever_ ignore me, boy!” he commanded, keeping hold of Micky’s shoulders and shoving his face close to Micky’s. “Now, we can have fun, but you know the main reason we’re here, so you’ll do as you’re told. Oh, and damn well respect your elders, kid.” He stared hard until Micky nodded, his eyes huge.

“Sorry, Mike. And…Mike, is it wrong that I’m more than a bit turned on right now?”

“Very wrong and _very_ evident.” Davy, catching them up, glanced down at Micky’s…now tighter gray slacks. “You look like you dropped a banana down your trousers, man. And I don’t mean on the outside.” He gave them a second to work that out. “Mick, come down here.” He beckoned him down, and when Micky bent to his level, Davy grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. Not for long, but quite hard, finishing with, “You’re welcome, Mike.”

Davy then turned to look not just at the ornate park gates in front of them but the street leading up to the castle in the park’s center, the train track circling high around the park, the sky rides crossing it, and the chattering, happy flocks of people excited to be there. “Blood—”

“y”

“hell,”

“guys!” Micky completed the quartet of amazed reactions. “Disneyland! Right here, before us, all spread out and waiting for us to dive right in and…I’m handcuffed. _I’m handcuffed?_”

“It’s best, Micky,” said Peter, holding up his wrist too—he’d drawn the short straw. “We’re kind of here to work, remember?” He brushed him down. “Think professional. Think executive. Think—”

“_Oi!_” yelled a British voice, and Amanda, the reason they were there, waved from just inside the gates, where she stood with her cameraman, Selena her all-sorts assistant from the magazine, her roommate Toby, and a small knot of middle-aged men in suits.

“That Mr. Willis?” gasped Mike, not so much at the man as at his smile—it looked wide, strained, and fixed in place, showing most of his teeth.

“Monkees!” Amanda’s grin got wider as they approached, and Mike realized it was aimed at—

“Micky!” Amanda hugged him. “I’ve told them all it’s Micky Day and you get to do anything you want, all day long!”

With a, “Wow, _thanks_!” Micky grabbed her and spun her around…the metal bracelet of his handcuff falling off.

“How?” Peter queried, undoing his.

“Yeah, how is it Micky Day?” Davy added.

“What even _is_ Micky Day?” Mike had to ask.

“Because today’s November second?” Micky made it seem obvious. “Justus Day?”

“Just…us?” Davy pointed at their group, confused.

“_Saint_ Justus?” Micky sighed as if lamenting their ignorance. “The patron saint of Trieste? _My_ saint, because my father was from Trieste? He’s passed on, sadly.” He aimed that bit at the group of executives. “So Justus Day is Micky Day!”

“Theme days – might be good idea…along with weddings and honeymoon packages…” Amanda mused.

“You can mention it in your column!” one of the suits told her, trying a smile on for size.

_A Lady, A Broad._ Mike would never forget the title of the column the Brit now wrote for her magazine back home, the overseas successor to her London-based _Lady of the Night_ social column

“And, Dad.” His daughter Toby nudged him. “We’ll get some nice, happy shots of you with—”

“Degenerate long-hairs!” burst from Mr. Willis’ stretched-wide mouth.

“Modern _young_ people, I think you mean, Bill,” one of the other men prompted.

Who was that, Mike wondered, his alienist? Hypnotist?

“After that incident with the Peace Corps Volunteers and the local news channel,” Toby continued.

“So yes, Bill is happy to show you around, your ladyship, you and your, assistant writer, is it?” The suit patted Toby.

“Yeah, she assists with spelling,” Micky said. Mike…doubted it.

“Who’s also Bill’s daughter! Plus her, erm…” The corporate guy pointed at Davy.

“Sweetheart.” Davy, incapable of shame, looped his arm through Toby’s.

“And his three friends, all long-hairs, reporting for duty!” Micky finished, pulling them all into a line to have their first lot of photographs snapped with the grown-ups, the price they were paying for this two-days’ all-included holiday.

“Toby?” Mike had to ask. “Why is your father’s face like that?” It was slightly creepy how the guy’s rictus grin never let up. It seemed to follow you around.

Toby looked puzzled, and Mike contorted his lower face into a facsimile of the man’s death’s-head grin. Not for long—it hurt.

“Oh, they needed him to smile for the PR pics with young people, so they gave him an injection, like at the dentist,” Toby whispered back.

“You mean he’s frozen like _that_?” Mike risked another peep. “How’s he gonna eat soup?”

“Oh, they inject that too,” came Toby’s reply. She didn’t _seem_ to be joking. As with so many topics when it came to Toby, Mike gave in.

“Pity we didn’t know about your special day, little man.” The executive, quite brave, patted Micky on the shoulder. “Else you could have gotten a ride in the Main Street parade.”

“That’s…not necessarily a problem.” Micky rubbed his hands together

“Micky, no.” Mike put as much authority as he could into his tone. “Cool it, okay? We don’t want a repeat of Harmonica.” He glanced at the others for support.

Peter bristled. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“_Nothing!_” Mike declared. “Not—”

“Nothing? _Thanks_.” Micky’s look of frost was withering.

Before Mike could straighten that snag out, their party had walked inside the park enough that discussion turned to what mode of transport they’d prefer to be photographed in traveling down Main Street in. “Amanda.” Mike drew her aside as they were getting into the old-fashioned jitney deemed most photogenic. “’Manda-girl, heh, this might sound weird, but could we handcuff you to Micky?”

She raised an eyebrow. “_We_ being…?”

“Well, me and Pete, and Davy. And for Toby too.” Mike supposed.

“You kinky _sods_,” she commented, looking him up and down. “_Fuck_, Mike! I know I’ve asked you this before, but are you _sure_ you’re not English? Well, I’m a bit busy working at the moment—can we get back to this later?” Her slow lick of her plump lips left them shining.

“No, I…We…” Mike, extending his dealing-with-Toby approach to her roommate, gave in.

“Michael, come relax,” Peter cajoled him, patting the space next to him at the end of the padded leather seat along one side of the open-topped vehicle. Mike was surprised he wasn’t leaning back, an elbow either side of him on the gleaming red and gold jitney’s back rest, but understood when Peter felt around in the inside pocket of his band shirt.

“Relax as in…” Mike blinked at the very tiny hand-rolled cigarette Peter fished out.

“Smoke the world’s smallest and so most discreet, but tightest packed and so very potent joint.” Peter lit the teeny cigarette and inhaled, eyes closed.

“Where d’you learn that? That skills exchange workshop on Crescent?” Mike inquired, keeping his voice as low as Peter’s.

“Yes, actually,” Peter replied, and Mike, who’d just taken a toke, spluttered and coughed. “No fair. I’m taking another hit,” he warned Peter.

“Yeah. I taught a three-digit fingering technique in exchange for it,” Peter added, and Mike, who’d just inhaled again, choked this time.

“Everything okay?” asked one of the suits, craning around from where he sat in the small row behind the driver. Behind…Davy, driving? And Micky, who was cross-legged on the front of the vehicle, like some goddamn hood ornament made big. Mike felt sorry for the photographer, running backwards in front of the jitney, snapping away.

“Yes, thanks. It sure is nice,” Mike replied, smoke streaming from him to punctuate his words as he did so.

He’d seen pictures and photos of the park, of course, but they hadn’t captured how much the street really did look like a town from much earlier in the century, with its period buildings, like the train station and movie theater, and firehouse and stores. Real ones too, like a coffee house and a barber’s. Peter needed a haircut. Mike nudged him. “Look at that huge pole—there, just after that big fire hose. This place’s got what you need.”

It was Peter’s turn to splutter and cough. Mike rolled his eyes. Did he imagine it, or did he catch Mr. Willis making a whining noise and eyeing the four of them when they passed the barbershop? They posed for more photos when they arrived at the square at far end of Main Street, just before the castle.

“Where to first?” Mike asked their hostess, holding Micky by the back of his shirt when he spun between Adventureland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland like a cracked-out compass needle.

“Let’s get work out of the way, then enjoy the park?” Amanda asked them as a group, and everyone nodded. She turned to the other executives. “We’ll meet you back here for more photos with you at the parade and the Opera House.”

“If you’re sure?” The more senior of them eyed Mr Willis and his perma-grimace-grin.

“Yes, we’ll be fine. I need to see the place as a normal visitor might,” Amanda told them. “Well, a visitor with a VIP pass, meaning no _ghastly_ queuing.” She smiled, waving goodbye to the departing suits.

Peter added his hand to Mike’s, helping secure Micky.

“Do you mind…they want me to publicize the newer rides,” Amanda belatedly answered Mike. She showed them a map of the park, folded into quarters with the Fantasyland section turned upward.

“Through here.” Toby led the way into the castle. She must have grown up in the place, Mike supposed.

“Davy – this could have been designed for you!” Micky said, pointing at the little-bitty rooms and nooks and niches they passed through.

“How so?” Davy breathed through his nose, suspecting—

“Because you were a prince, remember?”

“Mick, we’re rationing you to just one small joke, remember?” Mike said. He held extra-tightly to Micky as they walked over the drawbridge across the moat and into Fantasyland.

Micky nodded, looking as though he was bursting, until he saw the It’s A Small World ride and “Davy, you’re home!” exploded from him. He could barely stand still for the photos, in contrast to Mr. Willis, who hardly moved as they grouped and reconfigured all around him, getting plenty of different shots with him in. Maybe the numbing agent spread?

“Come on!” Micky went to grab Mike and Peter when they hung back after, everyone else making for the entrance to the attraction.

“Erm, boats?” Peter said, pointing at Mike. “I’ll stay with him.”

The rest got on, leaving them alone, leaning on the wooden railing where the ride started, and waiting. Mike didn’t mind, content to hang out with Peter, feeling the dope ease through him. “It’s really something, right?” he asked, looking all around.

“A gas.” Peter nodded. “The colors are bright and the music…I can feel it here.” He tapped his breastbone, beating out the insistent staccato rhythm of the song accompanying the attraction. “How much weirder would this be after dropping acid?”

“Babe?” Mike tilted his head in inquiry.

“Because I think smoking dope here is the equivalent of doing acid elsewhere.”

“That’s deep. Wait, so we’re _tripping_?”

Things seemed to be funnier there too; at least this set them off giggling again, just like the sight of Toby’s father in a small boat between Amanda’s photographer and assistant, his Mr. Sardonicus-like face vanishing into the depths of the ride, did.

“Weird to think we’re all couples, me and you, Davy and Toby, and Micky and Amanda,” mused Peter.

“And Pongo the consul makes three?” queried Mike. “And you gotta loose definition of couples there, when Davy’s still dating half of Santa Monica, Micky was juggling Amanda and Deandra—”

“Nice rhyme.”

“Thank you. And now he's single, and what about Whatshisname, Amanda’s fiancé, remember?” Although that could have been to ensure her extended residence in the country, Mike suspected.

“She…sorted that out. Sort of.” Peter tried to defend her.

“Ya know, I never really thought he bought the amnesia story?” Mike shook his head. It hadn’t been one of Micky’s better ideas, and Amanda had laid it on _very_ thick.

“If he didn’t, at least he was too polite to say anything, being English.”

Mike supposed so. He laughed. “Gotta love how she stretched her summer secondment out into six months. It’s November! What did she claim, that it was still summer, so she didn’t have to go yet?”

“Guess it is summer for her compared to London,” said Peter.

“You should know. You’re from the north and so you wear shorts here eleven months of the year,” Mike pointed out.

Peter grinned. “Keep count, do you? Keep watch of my legs?”

“Well, I—”

“Long-hairs!” a woman walking past scorned, to her companions. “Goddam hippies!”

“That’s VIP long-hairs and hippies to you,” Mike called back, showing their passes, stunning the group into silence. The shiny golden tickets were more rumor than fact, given to only the select few. After a quick conflab with her friends, the first woman approached.

“Could I…get your autographs?” she asked, producing a small book and pen.

“Sure.” Mike was mellow enough to find it okay. Fun, even. Taking her pen, he signed the page _David Thomas Jones_.

Taking his cue, Peter wrote _George Michael Dolenz_.

“Y’all be sure go see our new movie, now,” Mike urged the gaggle of women. “It’s filmed in Smell-O-Vision.”

“And AromaRama,” Peter threw in. “And you can buy the Scent Track in the foyer after.”

“Scented movies are here to stay,” Mike added.

Peter was flashing them all a peace sign as Amanda and co stumbled off the boat onto dry land, all of them looking traumatized.

“Now see, if we’d gone on that ride…” Mike couldn’t get out anything else for giggling. Micky’s sad face stopped him, though. “Mick? What’s up?”

“Oh, man, am I bummed!” Micky cried. “I just found from Mr. Willis that until the spring, this space here was the Midget Autopia!” He patted Davy on the head. “If only we’d come before May, I could’ve got in a good crack or two!”

“I know what you mean—I feel like getting in a good crack now.” Davy did in fact crack his knuckles, preparatory to making a fist.

“Hey, don’t photograph _that_!” Mike ordered the photographer, who’d crouched low…to shoot a stain on Micky’s crotch. “And for God’s sake, no one wants to see where Micky w—”

“I did not freak out at the tiny doll people and wet myself!” Micky shouted. “I got splashed with water!”

“Sorry. Her ladyship said to get every detail,” the photographer muttered.

“Well, they for sure don’t include piss stains.” Mike folded his arms.

“I’m telling you it’s not piss!” yelled Micky…just as a flock of Girl Scouts went by with their troop leader.

“Well, _really_!” the woman hissed.

“Yes, really. I did _not_ piss myself!” Micky shouted after them, making the few Girl Scouts who hadn’t started crying just before start now. He turned to Amanda. “So, where to next?”

“Well, the Peter Pan Flight’s had a makeover, so we should… No?” She studied Mike’s face. “Because…it’s got a lagoon and boats?”

“Andbecauseit’sgotpirates,” he mumbled.

“_Pirates?_” Amanda echoed.

Mike exhaled and nodded. “Ijustdon’tdowell withpirates,” he admitted in a mutter.

“Okay…” Biting back her questions, Amanda studied a sheet of paper. “The Bobsled Matterhorn roller-coaster ride? ‘The most distinctive landmark on the Disneyland scene, visible from almost anywhere in the park’ just got an upgrade—that okay?”

“Daddy, you won’t let the yeti get me? Promise?” Burying her head in his chest and shaking, Toby clung to her father, whose grin took on an embarrassed slant. Or some sort of slant—maybe the injection was wearing off.

“Huh?” Micky stared.

“There’s a yeti on the mountain in that ride. It comes out and roars, shaking a bone, and when Toby was little, her dad got her to behave by telling her it was a human bone and the yeti would get _her_ next if she didn’t,” Davy explained.

“Wow.” Peter looked stunned. “What about her brother?”

“What about him?” Davy whipped around, his truculent scowl captured by the photographer.

“I see.” Amanda regrouped. Again. “As Mr. Willis has got limited time free, what say we finish his part in these proceedings so he can get back to his real work?” _And we can get the rest of day to ourselves_, she had no need to add.

“And you two need some alone time, right?” she whispered to Mike, jerking her head toward Peter. “So we’ll head back to Main Street and you two can slope off to the café! I’ll get shots of Micky—”

“And me.” Davy scowled harder. Oh yeah, that argument they’d been having for days about who would get more photos taken.

“And Mr. Willis, at the new bit to the store there. I can get more pics of you in your office after, for the corporate brochure?” She took the further creep of the man’s smile for a yes. “I’ve got the shots planned. Me perched on the edge of your desk, toying with a huge lollipop… Me bent over your desk, while you use your long pointer to show me a map of the park…”

“_What?_” Toby gasped.

Amanda waved a hand. “It’s a journalism thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, okay,” Toby, a USC journalism grad, was mollified.

“And so…let’s race!” Amanda yelled. “Bill, Selena – take that! Come on, Toby!” Leaving Mr. Willis and Selena to a large trike, she and Toby leapt onto a tandem and shot off. It might have been difficult to steer, judging by their wobbles, but Mike betted it was a damn sight easier than the four-seater pushbike they found themselves on. And falling off. One at a time, one after the other, from front to back. And being chased by what looked to Mike looked like a group of guys in shiny waistcoats, bowties and straw hats, all shaking their fists.

“Babe, that dope musta been strong,” he gasped, peeking over his shoulder and rubbing his eyes.

But it was worth it when he and Peter were sitting in the coffee shop, at a small private table out on the second-story balcony overlooking the street. Mike sipped his sensible coffee and tried to ignore Pete’s choice…

“What?” came thickly as Peter swirled the flat of his tongue around the ice cream, turning the cone in his hand to do so. “I needed something sweet,” came indistinctly as he used his curled tongue tip to scoop from the top and in doing so smeared the cream over his lips. And when he started lapping, all short, quick motions that had him bobbing his head, it took Mike a few seconds to understand that the strangled, anguished noise he heard had come from him.

“Oh praise the Lord,” he uttered, when Peter finished and crunched the last inch of the wafer.

“Oh, thanks.” Peter smiled up at the costumed waitress who brought the second part of his order…a huge milkshake…with a straw. A milkshake that was thick and syrupy, judging by way he had to hollow his cheeks and suck. And suck some more. And lick the straw and suck. Mike shifted in his chair at the VIP table.

“Ummm, smell that confectionary boiling.” Peter sniffed the air, his nose angled to the candy place next door. “It reminds me of being younger—my mother sometimes made her own candy.”

Peter seemed to be thinking of his parents a bit, recently. Mike didn’t want to ask about it, though, not wanting anything heavy or bring-down. “What other smells do you associate with growing up?” he asked.

“Hmm. Hot maple syrup. And freshly split maple trees in late spring. If we had to split the wood ourselves, when the ax bit into it, it was like a forest sprang up around me.”

“If that’s spring, what’s fall?” Mike wanted to know.

“McIntosh apples.” Peter’s reply came immediately. “You pick the first, it’s like the season right in your hand. And when you take that first bite, that’s the taste of fall.”

“So that’s Connecticut, huh?”

“And what’s Texas?” Peter took a slurp of his shake.

Mike grinned, recalling how he’d thought about that once, wondering if Peter took sniffs of him, like he did Peter, tying to catalog his scents. “Well, not honey mesquite and buffalo grass and common persimmon. Oh, nothing. I guess for me…the county fair? Fried things, trodden-on straw, and the grease and hot metal of carnival rides.”

“Cotton candy.” Peter tilted his head, and Mike caught the aroma of spun sugar on the street.

“Yeah, look, the sign says that confectionary place there has got a new, bigger candy-making kitchen.” Suddenly dry-mouthed, he swallowed.

“Didn’t Amanda say she had to be at the new…” Peter couldn’t go on.

“She did.”

“Meaning…”

“Micky’s loose around that much sugar.” Mike had to face it.

They looked at each other at the same time and both said, again at the same time, “_I’m scared._”

That was when things took a turn for the…complicated, and not just because of a barbershop quartet stomping up the street and yelling in four-part harmony about what they’d do when they found who’d taken their specially made four-man bike…


	10. Late Fall 1966, part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …and One Time Mike and Peter Shared Theirs with Micky...

“We should go help.” Peter indicated the uniformed figures below, and the two in red four-buttoned shirts and gray pants. “Technically, it’s four against two.”

“Unless the chicks pitch in.” Mike couldn’t imagine Toby being any use in a fight, but wondered if Amanda’s Journalism course, which seemed to have included electives on breaking and entering, had taught her anything that might be useful in a dust-up. “And on paper, it’d look like four against one and a half, size of Davy.”

“Whoever thinks that doesn’t know the Manchester Marauder—but soon will.” Peter winced at the sounds of the escalating argument drifting up from the street. “We’d better go.”

Mike had known this interlude, this mini-mini-break with Peter had been too good to last. He put his empty coffee cup on its saucer with a _clink_. “Sounds like you’re spoiling for a fight there, shotgun.”

“Hardly. I’m thinking we should go calm things down before those barbershop guys get hurt—none of them can be a day under sixty!” Peter eyed him, the air between them growing thicker, suddenly, somehow. “Or do you mean more than just this occasion? Like, you think I’m a hypocrite? That the pacifism, the peace and love, is just superficial and I’m prey to heavy, negative emotions?”

“No.” Mike wasn’t sure what he was getting into here and didn’t want the answer to be _out of my depth_. He trod carefully, weighing his words. “I never said that and I don’t think it. What I do think, before you ask, is…your feelings for me caught you by surprise.”

“_Oh._” Peter’s shoulders relaxed and his dimple made a lightning appearance before he asked, “Go on?”

“And I bet you never acted like that before because you never felt like that before.”

Peter inspected him, perhaps for any trace of smugness, but Mike wasn’t exhibiting any. Wasn’t feeling any. He made a slight raised-eyebrows, palms-up-raised-hands ‘over to you, if you want’ gesture that he belatedly realized he’d gotten from his therapist.

Peter’s _really?_ expression said he recognized it too. “Okay. Well, I…never schemed to get anyone to notice me, to be attracted to me, before, like I did with you. That’s for sure. And yes, I suppose I’ve never experienced the kind of jealousy I felt, no; _feel_ over you and…” Peter tried a deep breath, eyes closed, and when that didn’t seem to do anything for him, opened them to fix Mike in their vivid topaz glimmer.

Mike suddenly regretted they’d gotten into this, here, now. No—that he’d thrown Peter his cue, given him permission to get into this, here, now. He braced himself—

“Just, I never thought _Jeremiah_ had trained as a doctor.”

“He…didn’t,” Mike replied, wondering where—

“Because if he did, he should ask for a refund on his fees, seeing as, when I showed up, he was about to try to examine your tonsils with his _tongue_, Michael! And was he about to check you for a hernia, like, _manually_? Because it _really_ looked like it.” It rushed out in a jerky stream of fiery molten lava.

“Peter, you…” _Don’t know the half of it._ He’d put off telling Peter about himself and J, what little there was to tell, deeming it irrelevant, and then…too late.

“Me? I’m what?” Peter prompted, leaning into him now, his elbows on the table.

“So fucken _hot_!” Mike breathed, playing his all-purpose get-out-of-jail-free card, one that happened to be oh-so-very true. “And you know damn well I wasn’t and wouldn’t, ever, with J or _anyone_.”

“I…do know,” Peter had the honesty and grace to admit.

“For as long as you’re mine.”

That was true too, and Peter knew it just as well. His eyes on Peter’s gorgeous face, Mike gave a slow rub of his foot against Peter’s ankle, hidden by the table, self-trained as they both were to keep their hands—and as much of their bodies as possible—off the other in public.

With a second, Peter was pressing back, their movements a soft, slow synchronicity as they shared a brief look and a quick smile before facing front, their gaze, their attention, on the world around them, behaving as two men out in public were supposed to. Because guys weren’t supposed to stare into each other’s eyes or confess their feelings or give a vivid description of having found their male partner being hit on by another guy.

“It’s just you and no one else, you know.” Mike’s tone was matter-of-fact. He grinned. “For better or worse.”

“Amen. And ditto.” Peter gave him a reasonable facsimile of his usual smile before he stood, brushing his body along Mike’s arm and shoulder as he did so. “Come on.”

They had more talking to do, Mike reflected, despite having gotten a lot out on that crazy night back in August when the others had forced them to open their hearts to each other, to spill their fears and doubts. Oh, not to express their love—they had no problem doing that, but hadn’t been dealing with all the stuff that got in the way. Yeah, seemed they were due another baring of their souls. Maybe healthy relationships demanded three-monthly doses of raw, terrifying honesty. Or was it just himandPeter that needed to have regular rap sessions?

But, as usual, there was no time to muse on it right then, not with the pressing matters they had on hand. The two of them reached the street, to find…the altercation mostly over, including most of the shouting.

“How in hell were we supposed to know we couldn’t take it?” Mike threw in as a parting shot. Literally—the four close-harmony singers were wobbling away on their quadricycle. “We thought all the park transport was for anyone and everyone, man!” He couldn’t have assumed anything else about the bikes, the way Amanda had leaped on one.

“Like in Amsterdam?” Peter added. “The _Witte Fietsenplan_?”

Mike turned to look at him. Peter often mentioned that city, making it seem like Shangri-La. “Hey, stop taking photos of crap like that!” he warned the photographer again, getting between him and Micky’s dripping wet body, its soaked clothes plastered to it, that the shutterbug was clicking pictures of.

“Here.” Davy untwisted a towel from the rope it had been tightened into and passed it over. “I grabbed this off ’em when they were snapping it at me. It bloody stung, as well! For old geezers, they were really strong and quick, and looked like they knew what they were doing, way they used their barbershop stuff as weapons like that. We’re lucky they didn’t get creative with their scissors.”

“What word did that little sneaky one spray on my back in shaving foam, Davy?” Micky turned around for them to read it.

_Oh, sweet Lord._ “Wipe that off, quick,” Mike ordered Davy. He thought quickly. “Or at least the first letter, so we can make out it’s his name, short for Ricky, you know?” Mike shot a death glare at the photographer, when the latter lifted his camera again.

“Sorry!” The guy lowered it. “Just, her ladyship said—”

“And stop mocking her! Even if she is a Brit and a little fancy, there’s no need for that attitude, boy,” Mike told him.

“No, you don’t understand… She…” The photographer gave up and obeyed Amanda’s beckoning wave from the town hall square near the entrance gates.

Mike followed, curious about the tall, narrow white tent erected in the middle of the square. With its canvas curtain-door, it reminded him of a changing tent, like at the beach, only bigger, as if for a group instead of an individual. A dressing tent for a few performers, maybe? Then his attention was caught by the large truck-like vehicle on the other side of the square, and he wondered why it was decked out like some old-fashioned ship, or antique boat, or whatever.

“And this is because the ride’s been refurbished, sorry, refreshed?” Amanda was asking one of the corporate suits from earlier. Not Mr. Willis—Mike betted he’d locked himself in a supply closet or was hiding under his desk, after the lollipop and pointer photos. This was Clarke.

Mike half-listened to the guy explaining what the wires and rigging was for, how the main character would ‘fly’ right around the square before landing on the ship’s mast, today being a dry run for the new float’s later debut in the parade proper. All the boating terms made him shiver, and he looked away, which made him wonder what the soldiers walking through the entrance gates and up to the square had to do with it, and why one seemed familiar…

“Just as today’s flag ceremony is a rehearsal for our upcoming Veterans Day flag retreat,” Clarke continued. “For which we’re honored by the presence of a very distinguished and decorated general, a local man who’s just been seconded to the Pentagon—”

“Guys, look!” Mike pointed. “Micky, it’s—”

“_General Vandenberg!_” came in an indistinct cheep from where Micky was burrowing his way under the bottom of the tent, his ass sticking up like a rabbit’s tail as he scampered and pushed his way inside.

“_General Vandenberg!_” he repeated a millisecond later, only his head now visible, sticking out of a gap in the canvas door.

“Harley, please, ma’am,” the general told Amanda, sweeping his hat off and under his arm with one hand, his hair smooth with the other and holding out the first hand to shake all in one practiced, seamless upper-limb ballet.

“General. Dress uniform. With chest and medals!” Amanda squeaked in reply, making Mike turn to see if she was all right, because he’d never heard her sound like _that_ before. After a few seconds of staring open-mouthed at Harley, then biting her lip, she lowered her gaze and played with her hair, twisting a lock around one finger while she simpered.

“Shiny medals. On _broad_ _chest_!” she added, pointing a shaky finger at the older man’s said broad chest, which was when a girlish giggle emerged from her. “Because _uniform_. _Man in uniform!_” The dreamy murmur this was delivered in matched the soppy smile on her face.

“Erm, my hand, ma’am?” the general prompted her—Amanda was still holding it.

“_Miss!_” Amanda hissed. “_Not_ married. Hand…yes.” She brought her other one up to clasp it too, meeting his eyes again. “Uniform. Chest. Military. General.”

Mike turned his attention from where the general was slipping an extra medal from his pocket and slapping it on his chest, and where Amanda was now…fluttering a fan in front of her face and her eyelashes over the top of it. He returned his attention to the disembodied head. “Micky?”

“_It’s General—_”

“Yeah. We established that.” Mike raised an eyebrow.

“He’s real mad at me, Mike. Said he’d horsewhip me if he ever saw me again—and not in a good way.”

“_What?_”

“Yeah! Threatened to horsewhip my bare ass the length of Beechwood—”

“He hasn’t got a horsewhip.” Peter peered over.

“He’s got a cane though.” Davy peered harder. “And he’d probably make do with that, push came to shove. Military man an’ all that.” When they looked at him, he shrugged.

“And you’re not in Beechwood,” Peter continued, in a _so that’s all right then_ tone.

“Yeah, I don’t think the exact location is the thing?” Micky glared at Peter.

“You said it was—said it was your arse,” Davy reminded him. “What?” He gave a bigger shrug.

“Micky…” Mike blew out a breath. “Why, babe? Why would he want to do that?”

“’CauseIhockedhisring.”

“_What?_”

“Because I hocked his engagement ring, Mike!” Micky yelled in a whisper. “Remember when we were _reallllly_ broke, and then we weren’t? I sold the diamond ring he gave me when he proposed, and we lived off the proceeds.”

“But…” Mike cast his mind back. “But you said you came into some money!”

“I _did_! I _hocked_ his goddam _ring_!”

“All right, we got it!” Mike thought he’d scream if Micky said it again.

“And so I couldn’t return it. Mike, you gotta help me!” Micky stretched a beseeching hand out through the tent opening too. “I don’t want my naked ass whipped along Main Street for all to see! Not only would that be the worst Micky Day ever, but I can’t let it happen in the happiest place on earth!”

“No one wants that, man,” Davy assured him, patting him on the head. “In fact, people’d pay not to see _that_ pancake-flat, lily-white ‘attraction’. Wait. If he’s mad, shouldn’t _we_ all hide, too?”

“Nah. He wouldn’t start anything with you three. You got stuff on him,” Micky reasoned.

Yeah, like him courting and proposing to Micky, believing he was a lady.

“Well, uh, you disguise yourself, Mick.” Mike thought quickly. “There’s gotta be something in that tent to put on, right? Then just be discreet. Inconspicuous. Keep back, out of sight…”

A minute later, he was gaping at the nutjob. “Micky, I said ‘out of sight’, not—”

“Outta sight!” Peter finished for him, nodding at Micky in the green scalene-triangle hat with a brown feather, the short, tight green tunic with a very deep V-neck, the brown ankle boots with pointy toes, …and the bright green, tight green panty hose.

“How, _how_, is that inconspi…” Mike shook his head. “At least pull that hat down as far as you can over your face. And don’t talk, so no one can tell who you are. Got that?”

Micky nodded, miming locking his lips.

“Just, I don’t know, blend in, go with the flow,” Mike advised.

“Mike?” Micky yelped as he was bustled away by a small group who swept up to him, complaining and tutting about him being late, and _finally_, and…

“Yeah…that’s not so much the flow as it is a gang of…burly technicians who’ve gathered him up,” Davy observed. “Oh, to hook him up?”

“To an actual hook,” Peter finished as Micky, who’d been deposited on a small platform next to some equipment, was now hoisted aloft, to sway a few feet off the ground on the end of a wire, looking confused and startled but valiantly not speaking.

“Hey!” Mike hurried to the small group of suits, and Toby, who stood watching. “There’s a guy on a wire right there and—”

“He’ll ‘fly’ right around the square, yes!” Clarke indicated the route. The high-off-the-ground route.

“But he isn’t… He can’t…” Words failing Mike, he pointed upward and flapped his arms and shook his head.

“It’s not a problem, and neither is it dangerous!” Clarke gave a little laugh. “The rigging system is carefully calibrated for the cast member’s height and weight—a cast member trained in aerial acrobatics—”

“Like air ballet,” Toby said, as if that was a real thing. It…wasn’t, was it?

“Yes!” Clarke nodded. “Horizontal as well as vertical movements that are very graceful, delicate, and light—”

“Or like a sack of spuds being hurled high across a town square, one that’s screaming like a banshee and flailing its long skinny limbs, and _oohh_ that’s gotta hurt,” Davy commented as a wailing Micky dropped from his hook and plummeted into the white tent he’d stolen the costume from, falling through its canvas roof with a ripping noise and raising a chorus of screams from within.

“At least it sounds like he had a soft landing?” Peter tried to make the best of the shouting and cursing.

“He’ll be fine. He always is.” Mike knew he was trying to convince himself.

“Oh, I’m not worried about him. More about them…”

Davy’s _them_ seemed to be a few more cast members, revealed as the tent collapsed in pieces around them, falling away section by section like the segments of an orange. The one lying on the ground, moaning and clutching his stomach, was clearly the original, real Peter Pan. Well, as real as he could be. Mike knew what he meant.

“Look, Micky, just take his place a little longer, huh? You’d be doing him a favor after headbutting him in the gut, and you’re sure dressed for it,” Mike suggested, sneaking a peek from the corner of his eye at the returning soldiers, particularly their general, who’d perhaps been drawn back by the noise and bustle. Amanda clung to Vandenberg’s arm, gazing up at him, her duties clearly forgotten. “The show must go on, right?” He addressed this to the executives, who were standing around looking horrified.

“It’s not just him!” Clarke looked near tears, one hand over his mouth. Toby offered him a candy, for some reason, which, dazed, he took. He pointed at a woman sitting with her head bent, holding a red-stained handkerchief to her nose. “We’d need someone for her part, and where are we going to find someone like that? Not just someone her size, but she’s got a ton of stage experience, been working with a dialect coach to get a British accent—”

“Yes, I’m from England,” Davy was saying to a blonde chick, his accent polished to cut-glass. “Came here via the West End stage, then Broadway, then the LA Pavilion, then…” He looked at them all where they stared at him. “What? _What?_ Oh no. Whatever it is, no.”

“Aww, babe, you make one helluva foxy chick.” Micky held up the white cotton nightdress costume invitingly.

“I know I bloody do, and a much sexier one than you do, but no. Not even for Micky Day, which I don’t believe exists anyway.” Glaring, Davy dashed the white dress from Micky’s hands, whipping around to see who’d put the long wig on his head.

“Be a sport,” wheedled Mike. “A pal.”

“Not feeling sporty or pally enough to don a frock.” Davy exhaled slowly. “Unless…what’s it worth?”

“I dunno…what’cha got in mind?” Mike had a feeling he’d regret asking that.

It took Davy a full three minutes to list all the household chores he wanted out of and for how long, then a further two minutes to detail all the concessions he wanted making for him. Mike thought the personal whirlpool bath was pushing it, but decided Micky could be the one to bend low to the water, blowing bubbles through a straw while Davy reclined at his ease.

“Fine,” Davy sighed, rooting around in a box of Leichner greasepaint sticks quickly and expertly. “Who’s got the number six, medium tan?” he demanded.

“Great, so we’ll leave you to—”

“Not so fast.” Davy cut Mike off and eyed them via the mirror. “What about the other characters? Peter Pan is more than Peter and Wendy.” His smirk at them was shot through with triumph as he indicated the three other out-of-commission actors sitting or lying on the ground, the array of costumes and props…and the float that looked like a ship…

“Oh, no. No. I can’t be around pirates or boats—I get seasick, man!” Mike declared, fending off the advancing assistants and minions.

“You did all right in Harmonica,” Peter observed, an edge to his tone and a glint to his eye.

“Not as well as you!” exploded from Mike, which was when he knew he’d lost. Not just the argument, but the high ground, and any dignity he might have had…

Ten minutes later, Mike, curly black wig and curly black moustache itching like all hell, feet pinched by the buckled heeled shoes, body hot and bothered in the stupid costume, shook his cutlass up at green-glad figure that stood with its legs apart and its arms akimbo in the crow’s nest of the mast. The mast that pointed into the sky, way up above where Mike was strapped to the huge anchor swinging and swaying off the back of the pirate ship float as it grumbled and trundled its way onto Main Street…where the crowds waited.

Micky, getting the hang of the fly system wire, zipped from the mast, taking big leaps into the air to alight on various spots all around the ship as the fancy took him. “Best Micky Day _ever_!” floated down to Mike, along with trickles of sawdust from whenever Micky landed.

Or was it fairy dust, Mike thought bitterly. Oh, he intended to rub Micky’s face into a whole pile of the stuff later, make him choke on it. No; submerge his head and shoulders in it, fill his mouth and nose with it. Yeah, Mike knew fairy dust wasn’t like either doggie doo or ice-cold water. Also knew there was probably no such thing. But— The float wobbled over something on the ground, jerking everything, and the straps securing Mike around his middle bit into him. Again.

“Ooh, I’m gonna hurt you so bad for this, boy,” he vowed, shaking a fist. “You best watch yourself if there’s a sword fight. And there will be, soon as you land, kid. Guar-an-_teed_.”

“_Booo!_” shouted the crowd, overhearing Mike’s tirade.

“Such a realistic villain,” marvelled a guy. “One really feels his antagonistic hatred for the protagonist, Peter Pan.”

“Keep your fancy talk to yourself, Poindexter!” Mike yelled back.

“Mommy, are pirates _Texan_?” gasped a young kid.

“That one is, son. That one is.” His mother cradled her son to her side, his face buried in her dress.

“Don’t you _dare_ throw— _Stop!_” Mike ordered, trying to dodge missiles pelting him. “They’re _throwing_ things at me, Peter! Real Peter, I mean. Go make ’em stop!” He shook the milkshake from his face and scowled at Peter until he obeyed and jumped down from the back of the float into the crowd.

“Problem is…” Peter paused to sneeze, reacting to the white wig, which made his round glasses fly off, and him have to grab them. It also made his blue and white striped shirt ride up, exposing the lopsided padding around his stomach. “Problem is that I’m not frightening. You want the crocodile for that.”

“Crocodile? I’m not a dragon?” Toby paused in flapping her wings.

“No, you ain’t, and put your arms back inside your suit this second, young lady,” Mike commanded.

“And how are you breathing smoke?” Peter inquired.

“You think you’ve got problems?” Davy called down from the prow, where the wind was whipping his chemise up. And up… “Now I know how Scotsmen feel. What? I wasn’t gonna put those matching white cotton knickers on with the dress, was I? That would’ve just been weird. I'm not a freak.”

“Soon as I catch that maniac, I’ll give him one from all of us,” Mike swore from between gritted teeth…

But he couldn’t, because after the parade, with them thankfully, gratefully, back in their own clothes, Micky was nowhere to be seen.

“I bet he put another disguise on.” Davy pointed to the rows of costumes and accessories on the shelves and hooks of the changing room in the Old Fire Station, seen as they made their way out.

“Meaning he could be any one of these!” Mike said, indicating the Disney characters strolling up and down. Irritation and anger fuelled him. “What say we go find him out, huh?”

***

But they had no luck, and were even more unlucky, with Mike failing to block a punch to the stomach from Minnie Mouse and Peter narrowly avoiding a kick to his ’nads from Daisy Duck.

“Why did you think he’d be a female character? And I told you, look under their heads, not under their…” Davy gave in. “Well, that’s a drag. No, not talking about the dress. I mean it’s a bummer Micky’s gone—he and Amanda and Toby and I are having dinner with the Willises and some other executives. Part of Mr. W’s rehab program, and with more photos for the corporate brochures and shareholders’ meetings and all that.”

The group in question were waiting in the street, and Davy waved at them, giving them a ‘one-second’ gesture.

“And?” Mike’s tone was grim.

“We can’t be one man short. The balance will be out.”

It was a sign of how exhausted and irritated he was that Mike had no thought about riffing on the first although he wanted to ask Davy when he’d become so goddamn British about etiquette and protocol.

“So…” Davy let them figure it out. And work it out.

“Pete, fingers?” Mike clenched a fist behind his back, indicating Peter should do the same, to select the victim, or dinner guest.

“Even?” Peter said.

Mike nodded. “One, two, three, shoot,” he commanded, displaying his extended middle finger…as did Peter. Mike closed his eyes.

“Guess who’s coming to dinner,” Davy said. “Give you a clue: it’s a scowling Texan.”

“Damn!” Mike exclaimed. “I was planning on taking Pete up the elevator.”

“_Mike!_” Davy hissed, looking all around.

“No, the special elevator, man!”

“_Mike!_” Davy hissed again.

“The outside elevator?”

Davy closed his eyes.

“The glass elevator that goes up the outside of the hotel to that fancy lounge and restaurant.” Mike scowled.

“You mean, you wanted to take me on Top of The Park, so I could see the fireworks?” Peter’s eyes gleamed. “Well, change your plans and take me in our room, later, and make me see them there.”

Annoyed though he was, Mike had to grin at the stupid joke. “I’ll hold you to that,” he told Peter. “God knows what time this’ll finish, so you’d better be ready, willing, and—”

“_Waiting!_” Amanda called over, on a fake cough, tapping her watch.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad, huh?” Mike asked Davy, as they plodded off.

***

It was, but Mike got through it, and at least he only had to sit through two courses before events meant he could go, to trudge back to the hotel, stomach roiling from the rich, unusual food, neck and shoulders tight with the tension that came from playing kiss-up to a bunch of stuck-up squares, and irritation at Micky’s behavior and concern over his vanishing act swirling like a dust cloud all around him. Thoughts of Peter kept him going, however.

Goddammit, they’d earned this time away together. _He’d_ earned this time with Peter. Weary, Mike rolled his shoulders. Still, sliding into bed with Peter would make it all better. Sliding _into_ Peter in bed would make it perfect. _Damn_, he was horny. Yeah, he’d slip into bed and wrap himself around Peter, maybe cautioning him into silence by cupping a hand over his mouth, then, when Peter was still and waiting, vibrating with anticipation and arousal, he’d whisper into his ear what he wanted, maybe nip that tempting earlobe for good measure. Would for sure bite where his neck met his shoulder, that spot that drove Peter wild.

But Peter would have to hold still for him, breathing hard into the gag of Mike’s hand and shuddering under him when Mike forced his way inside him, bottoming out in one long stroke. He’d stay deep and take Peter fast, all short, tight thrusts, and stay inside him even after he’d come, until he got hard again. _That_ wouldn’t take long, not with Peter. Oh, he wouldn’t forget Peter—Peter, who’d be hard as rock himself and leaking precum. No, Mike would work him, keep him at the edge…but not let him go over. Not yet.

He’d take his time, his second go-around with the edge taken off, make it slower, sweeter, longer, helping himself to the feel of Peter’s taut, toned, tight ass. _Huh, tight ass._ Usually an insult, but Peter wasn’t stingy with money, or inhibited and uptight, so the description was a compliment, in his case—and a miracle, considering what they got up to.

Peter always gave him a good ride and Mike wanted him to groove on it just as much, so yeah, he’d make sure he angled just right to hit Peter’s spot every so often, making Peter moan under him. Peter would be half-crazy with the need to come by then, would be fucking Mike’s hand, tight around him…until Mike loosened his grasp again, slowing the pace, backing him away from his release.

And when he eventually brought Peter off, his shouts would be loud and his cries high and desperate, all muffled into the pillow. Or no, Mike would have to change position before then, even if that meant pulling out briefly, because he loved to see Peter’s face when he came, the flush on his skin, the sheen in his eyes, the slackness to his dry mouth. Especially if Peter was in Mike’s lap, rising and falling on Mike as Mike fucked into him, and they looked into each other’s eyes all the way through, seeing each other react…and come. Oh yeah, Peter would come hard and long for him, Mike helping him ride every last pulse of his climax.

And if Peter was in the mood to top, to take Mike? Well, no problem. Peter had a big cock and knew how to use it—Mike loved it inside him, loved Peter making him his. Yeah, he could go for bottoming tonight, if Peter gave him head first, got him off quick and dirty. And he would, when Mike groaned out his pleasure at the feel of Peter’s hot mouth on him, and told Peter how good he looked with Mike’s dick down his throat, how he thanked God that Peter was such a slut for Mike’s cock. Dirty talk would have Peter sucking him hard, doing that flicker of his tongue into the slit and just under the head that drove Mike crazy, bringing him off in seconds. Then Mike would be all his, for Peter to do what he wanted, how he wanted, with him.

Jesus, his balls were aching as he worked the lock on the hotel room door. He was quiet, and the room even more so. Peter was asleep—Mike could see the shape in the bed over at the far side of the room, when he allowed a little light to spill out from the en suite. He angled the bathroom door enough for the vanity’s light to show him the room’s shadows. He didn’t want to bang into anything as he made his way to the bed, stripping out of his clothes as he did so. The soft glow from behind him plus a sliver of pale light from the window gleamed on a long streak of orange on the bed, and Mike’s heart picked up. He knew the orange sleepwear Peter had. Knew it intimately.

He slid into the double bed as smooth and quick as he’d planned, his knees either side of the thighs of the figure sleeping on its front, and reached out to grab himself a double handful of those sexy ass cheeks that filled his palms so well. Except—they didn’t. Finding himself groping a too-tiny butt and too-slim hips had Mike freezing in shock, his _mmm_ of appreciation cut off in his throat.

“_Mm?_” echoed the figure on the bed—

“_Micky?_” burst from Mike.

“What—” Peter clicked on the bedside light.

“The. Hell?” Mike finished for Peter and for himself, glaring at Peter where he lay on his back next to Micky, half underneath Micky…just as Micky lay half draped on top of Peter. “Micky? Peter? Someone wanna explain?” _Someone better._ His blood, already beating hot and heavy with his arousal, heated further.

“Nothing happened, Mike.” Peter sat up, and his naked chest, visible above the sheet at his waist, drew Mike’s hard-eyed gaze. “I’ve got shorts on.”

That Peter said that—felt he had to say that—had Mike stilling. Micky, however, rolled over onto his back.

“He came back cold and a little unglued.” Peter shrugged. “He came into bed to warm up, and we got to talking, to stop him freaking out. He asked me to tell him a story.”

Mike took that in. He could imagine the rest, could hear Micky’s voice: _“So I can sleep in here with you—”_

“Because it’s Micky Day!” the Micky in question finished.

“Except it _really_ ain’t, because it never was.” Mike gave him the stink-eye.

“It is _so_!” Micky pushed himself up to a half-sit and looked from Mike to Peter. “Even Amanda said it was, remember? She wanted me to have a great Micky Day.”

“That’s just it. She didn’t.” Realizing he was naked, Mike wrapped a loose sheet around himself. He’d debated whether to tell Micky what he’d found out, but now, kneeling on his bed, his balls and dick aching, seeing Micky _reclining_ in _his_ bed, attempting to snuggle up to Peter? Brat deserved what was coming to him.

“Mike, what?” Peter leaned into him.

“She…didn’t, Mick. I asked her… She was going on about you not being at the dinner—yeah, thanks for that—and worried because you’d gone chasing off on some crackbrained idea of finding—”

“_The super-secret Disney brothel!_” Micky whispered. “Where the rooms are set up like scenes from the movies, and the hookers dress as the _characters_, Mike! Can you imagine how trippy that would be?”

“No, I fucken can’t, because there’s no such goddamn thing!”

“Yeah, there is. Well, there’s all these rumors—”

“There aren’t. You heard it from Amanda, right? She made it up.” Mike glared.

“But why?” Peter blinked. “Micky’s been sneaking into places trying to find it, getting a little banged up in the process – he could’ve gotten into trouble!”

_And that’s why._ “Same reason why she did a lot of what she did today.” Mike looked from one to the other, willing them to get it. Peter was, he thought.

Micky’s desperate, “For me to have a good day!” lost out to Peter’s more considered, “To set traps for him to fall into?”

“To get you to make a fool of yourself, dig?” Mike underlined.

“And she documented the results.” Peter mimed the clicking of a camera.

“That’s such a bummer!” burst from Micky. “_Why?_ After we were an item! We were like, Beechwood’s hottest and heaviest, until she fled the scene on me.”

“That’s what I asked her, after I said it was good of her to be so concerned about you after…things ended, and I hoped she wasn’t, I don’t know, hung up on you, thinking you’d, like, _change_.” Mike shrugged.

“And?” Micky, expression rapt, was treating it like a story. 

“And she laughed in my face, man!” 

Amanda’s words still rang. “Oh, I have no intention or expectation of getting back together with him,” she’d said, and the honed-steel edge to her tone had had Mike replying, “Ah. You know he was stepping out on you.”

“Yup,” Amanda had replied with a _pop_ of her lips. “Even if I hadn’t guessed from what transpired on live TV, _LA Live_, to be precise, meeting up with Deandra after to talk would have told me what an immature, irresponsible, selfish little _prat_ Micky is.”

“Ah. You’re…taking it well?” Mike had ventured.

“I’m _really_ not. Especially when Deandra and I, choosing the Duke Box to meet up in…”

“Oh, no.” Mike had put his hand over his eyes.

“Yup,” Amanda had said again, her lips a thin line. “You guessed it. We caught him with the lady DJ and learned from that tall waitress they’ve been dating for months! It was actually quite the mental exercise, trying to work out our order of precedence, like minor royals in line for the throne.”

“Woah.” Back in the present, Peter shook his bangs from his eyes. “So she got Micky to humiliate himself and got it all on film? Him wetting his pants after freaking out at miniature people—”

“I did _not_—”

“Getting tangled in the frame of that bike. Getting smacked around by a gang of sixty-year-olds. Being thrown through the air and crash-landing—”

“Eating so much chocolate and caramel I barfed in the candy shop kitchen.”

Mike was glad they hadn’t known about that one.

“Tossed my cookies in the cookie dough. Literally—into a vat of it,” Micky explained.

Mike was _so_ glad they hadn’t known about that one. “And she’s promised Deandra a copy of the snaps,” he finished.

“Seems revenge is a dish best served Disney,” Peter observed.

“Huh.” Micky blew out a breath. “Worst Micky Day ever.”

“And that’s all you got to say?” Mike snapped. He’d thought Micky really liked Amanda. Or Deandra. Or Lola. He’d put effort into getting with the latter two, at least. But no, seemed he was still all about reaching for the next shiny thing, thinking he could juggle them all. Would what Amanda did teach him? If not, what would? “Nothing to add?”

“Yeah. That I’ll need a lot of comforting now.” With that, Micky snuggled into Peter. Peter, whose arm automatically lifted to wrap around him…then stopped. He looked at Mike, chin raised in question.

Micky’s eyes narrowed. Kid picked up on vibes and could read a room in a heartbeat, Mike knew. Also knew he could turn on a dime—all to make sure he got what he wanted.

Now, Micky stretched, his T-shirt riding up, and gave Mike a slow up-and-down look, ending on his crotch. “Well…anyway…”

“What, Mick?” Mike cursed himself for asking.

“Figure I still owe you, Mikey, after blocking you and J from getting it on.”

“_What?_” Peter prevented it from being a gasp, but it came out far from nonchalant.

“Pete, it was back in early spring. You were away. And I had no idea we could be…that we had a chance.” He fought to control his temper and breathing with Micky there, like that, in orange pj pants and tee, a color Peter wore, and wore in bed, and that Mike loved him in and loved him more in bed in.

“You and I nearly did it then, but we…didn’t. So now’s a good time…for a good time.” Micky drew up one foot, placing the sole flat on the bed and letting his bent leg fall to the side…drawing attention to his crotch. “And, oh, even though it’s Micky Day, I’m not suggesting having all the fun myself, any more than I’m suggesting just making things up to you…without Peter.” Micky looked from one to another and _for fuck’s sake_, bit his bottom lip.

“Micky…” Mike spoke slowly, his eyes on Peter, “Are you suggesting…what I think you might be suggesting?”

“Sharing a bed and fooling around with both of you together, as opposed to individually?” He made it seem reasonable. Logical, even. “And it’ll show you how good your teaching was!”

“Teaching…?”

“Yeah, you taught me to kiss and Peter taught me how to give head. Which you’ve both felt the benefit of.” And in dropping these bombshells, the rat fink was only just getting warmed up.

“_Michael?_” Peter’s eyes were enormous.

“Yes.” _Last year’s birthday present_, he tried to communicate, tried to show Peter what had happened—Micky turning up on that rich-swank estate…no, Micky getting him the job on that Hollywood estate and—

_He couldn’t get you that new LP you wanted? Or, or clean your bike for you, if he was broke?_ Peter blinked furiously.

_Babe, we’re getting this sorted,_ Mike told him. _In our next couples’ therapy session, if needs be…as well as now._

_Needs fucken be. _Peter gave a tiny quick nod and rubbed his leg against Mike’s knee, under the sheet.

“Like a double practical! You know, like at school…” Micky was still prattling on. “You had your theory classes, then got a double period of practical in the lab.” He gazed from one to another, in the silence that followed. “_Oh._ I guess I always knew that you were both just amusing yourselves with me, when you didn’t have each other, yet,” came out on a hiccup. Micky dashed his hand across his eyes. “It wasn’t about _me_, as a person, or your feelings for me.”

“That’s not true,” Peter replied.

“It’s _really_ not,” Mike added. “This…here, now, is all about my feelings toward you.” And that was a promise Micky could take to the bank.

“Okay!” Micky beamed. “So…we’re all here, all rarin’ to go?” he asked Mike, with another pointed look at his groin.

“It seems so. Peter?” Mike reached to cup his chin, looking deep into his eyes. “You solid on this?”

“I’m with you.” Peter turned his face into Mike’s caressing hand.

“Well, if you agree…” Mike gave the tiniest narrowing of his eyes, jerk of his chin signal to Peter. Seemed him and his sweetheart were on the same page on this. And that page…was ripe for the writing. Mike gave a turn-around twirl of his raised index finger to Micky, and when Micky either didn’t understand or didn’t obey quickly enough, Mike grasped his hips and turned him bodily over, to lie face down, one side of his mouth hitching up at the surprised, “_eeep,_” Micky made at being manhandled. _He ain’t seen nothin’ yet._

Mike laid his body over Micky’s, brushing his lips against his ear, to whisper, “Kid, sharing a bed and fooling around with both of us together…could get a little rough. _Be_ a little rough. On _you_.”

Micky shivered under him, and Mike eased off. Off the bed, to where he’d dropped his clothes, to find what he needed.

“Like last time?” Micky was asking when Mike returned. “Back in the spring, Pete, when J left, Mike almost, well, you kn—_erghhh_!”

Mike pushing the thick leather of his belt between Micky’s teeth had cut off his speech. “Bite on this,” Mike instructed. “And it gets too much, you tap out, y’hear?” He formed Micky’s hand into a fist and banged it down on the mattress under him, to show him what he should do. “Peter? You wanna get in on this?”

His eyes still on Mike, Peter slid flat, his shoulders and neck propped up on the pillows, and eased Micky on top of him, to cradle Micky’s head on his chest. Mike kneeled behind Micky, in between his spread legs, and angled the bedside lamp to get the light falling just where he needed it.

“This has been a long time coming,” he said, pulling Micky’s pj pants down, exposing the pale spheres of his ass. “Last chance, Micky?”

Peter squirmed where Micky’s vigorous headshake of denial tickled against Peter’s chest.

“Peter, darlin’, I love you,” Mike told him, stroking, then rubbing the flesh of Micky’s ass, getting it sensitized.

“Baby, I love you too.” A slow smile, one that showcased his dimple, crossed Peter’s face and Mike raised his hand.

The first smack he landed on Micky’s ass was iron hard, a fleshy, meaty _thwack_ delivered by muscles and sinews powered by too many emotions to list. Rage, frustration, concern—yeah, too many. “_That’s _for Amanda!” he gritted out.

Ignoring Micky’s protests and escape attempts, Mike spanked another blow hot on the heels of the first, planting his hand to leave a second strike exactly on the pink handprint of the original. “And that’s for Deandra! And that’s for Lola!” He timed his slaps in tandem with his words, watching the pale-turned-pink flesh becoming a darker red.

He switched cheeks and pulled his arm back farther to land an extra-hard whack when he started chastising that side too. “_That’s_ for trying to manipulate Peter! And _that’s_ for trying to take advantage of Peter and me!”

He paused to rotate his shoulder, gather strength and study the swollen inflammation he’d made. By the sound of things, Micky had spat out the leather belt he’d briefly held clenched between his teeth. “And these are because I’ve gone from being ticked to hacked to pissed!” Mike switched to walloping Micky’s upper thighs, the defenceless crease where leg became butt. “About the _costume_, the _wig_, the _mustache_, the _shoes_, the _milkshake_, the _dinner_…” He accompanied each item on his list with a hard spanking.

Mike wasn’t cruel. He didn’t know if he was even fair. But sending up a quick request for a final jolt of strength and ignoring Micky’s frantic writhing, he rained down the final blows. “Thought you could manipulate us again, now? Or play us off against each other, like you been doing?” He paused. Micky was almost keening. With a final, “And _that’s_ because I had to eat turtle _soup_ tonight!” he landed the final, still hard, still jarring his entire arm, _smack_ of this spanking.

Silence and stillness reigned, for a few blissful seconds, until Peter’s exclamation of, “Micky! _Jesus!_ Mike, he—!” before he attempted to sit.

“_This…_” Hiccupping, swallowing sobs, fighting the catch in his voice, Micky turned his head to look from Peter to Mike. The effort it took him to move and speak was obvious. “_Totally counts as a threeway,_” he managed to say as, shaking, he pulled himself free to reveal the sticky whiteish wet patch under him…and on Peter.

“You fucken _pervert_!” Mike stripped the tee from Micky’s skinny torso and cleaned Peter with it. He span Micky around, gripping his shoulders and used his darkest death-glare on him, the one he rarely loosed on any of the other three. He spoke slowly, menace in each word. “Go find your own bed—there’s a pull-out back there—and think about your behaviour and the way you carry on. And I catch you listening or looking this way, it’s the belt. Buckle end. _Understand?_”

Micky had fallen from the bed and scrabbled away on his hands and knees before Mike could shake him to underscore his threat. In the silence, when the noise of the cot as Micky rolled into it and pulled the blankets over his head, had died, Mike dabbed again at Peter, then tossed the T-shirt aside. “I…guess we got some talking to do.”

“After.” Peter caught Mike around the back of his neck to pull him close. Close enough to whisper against his lips, “Because right now, I really wanna fuck.”

“Yeah?” Mike’s grin curled Peter’s mouth.

“Yeah.”

And their first coupling was as hard and furious as Mike had wanted, and more perfect than he’d imagined. As always. He cuddled Peter to him after. “What?” he murmured, feeling Peter thinking.

“Just wondering…that’s why Amanda was coming on to the general, trying to make Micky jealous? But if she doesn’t want Micky back, why?”

“No.” Mike had to chuckle. “That wasn’t part of her scheme – she just fell for him! And…he crashed the dinner, crazy in love with her! It’s how come I could leave early, why I’m home before Davy. I reckon Harley’s gonna propose.”

“On a _second_ meeting—he’s growing cautious in his old age.” Peter laughed too. “Think she’ll accept?”

“_Accept?_ I think she’ll break into the souvenir store and steal a ring to seal the deal!”

“She’d have to,” Peter pointed out. “Oh. But Lola?”

“Huh?”

“What if Amanda sends a copy of the humiliating photos of Micky to Lola?”

“Oh, you know her. I bet she’ll stick them up in the Duke Box. And probably in other clubs along the Strip.” Mike grinned.

“And probably fire us from _her_ club, our steady source of employment,” Peter said.

“_Sonofabitch!_” Mike yelled.

“Where you going?” Peter made a grab for him.

“Start round two on that immature, irresponsible, selfish little prat’s ass.” Mike shoved his way into a pair of boxer shorts. “_And _I’m gonna use the riding crop this time.”

The squeal and scrambling noise was Micky making a run for it, in nothing but pajama pants, out of the door, which he slammed behind him, in Mike’s face.

Mike smiled over at Peter. “I really do got the crop.”

“Good,” Peter replied, joining Mike. “All the more for me, then.”

“You two are too goddam kinky for me!” came in a plaintive wail from the corridor.

Peter kindly threw Micky out a blanket, and Mike locked the door after. “So, ready to see those fireworks?” he asked.

“If you’re ready to see stars,” Peter replied.

“Every time, when I’m with you,” Mike told him, gathering him close, to kiss him hard and long…as hard and long as Peter kissed him back.


End file.
